Google employees are worried about the possibility of layoffs in the future

Over the last few weeks, America witnessed massive layoffs in the tech industry, mostly by bigger tech players in the world. Google is one company that avoided large-scale job cuts despite being in the same sector. However, layoff anxiety is on the rise among Google employees, as talks about job cuts are spreading through the company.

Executives have made suggestions to improve the focus of the company and bring down project costs to increase the efficiency of the business by 20%. Google has also made certain changes to its performance review recently. Many employees are concerned that the reduced travel budgets they saw this year might be pointing to a job cut in the near future. These concerns come at a time when layoffs began spreading through other sectors such as media and entertainment.

Although Google was not affected as much as the other tech players on the market, it too felt some impact from the rising inflation, increasing interest rates, and the possibility of a recession. The ad revenue from YouTube was reduced from what it was a year ago last month. With the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX, the crypto market fell some more, creating more concerns about layoffs. The previously laid-off workers from other tech companies are flooding the job market at present, adding even more to the concerns of Google employees.

Google has already started some layoffs around the corners, but nothing as pronounced as those seen last week by the other employers. Questions about layoffs ranked high by employees on Dory, the question-asking system of Google. Some of these questions were:

• “Do we have any sense of how long we need to plan for difficult headwinds?”
• “Should expect any direct consequence to our teams, direction, and/or compensation to reduced profits we saw in the earnings call?”
• “How are we going to achieve 20% more productivity? Will refocus be enough or are we expecting layoffs?”

Another factor that contributed to the rising layoff concerns of Google employees was the recent changes to the performance review system. Earlier in 2022 Google planned to stop its tradition of using lengthy promotion packets. These consisted of long forms to be filled out by employees and reviews from supervisors and coworkers. Now, Google is using a streamlined process called Googler Reviews and Development (GRAD).

According to an email by a Google spokesperson, the GRAD system was introduced “to help employee development, coaching, learning, and career progression throughout the year.” They also added that it, “helps establish clear expectations and provide employees with regular feedback.” According to Google, the new performance review system will contribute to higher pay for employees.