Google is cooling off on its hiring efforts and cutting hundreds of workers from its global recruiting organization.
The cuts come after Google parent Alphabet announced it would cut 12,000 jobs, affecting 6% of its full-time workforce of around 200,000. They also come just a few months after Google posted second-quarter profit and revenue that exceeded Wall Street expectations. Google confirmed the cuts to Cord Cutters News. Semafor first reported on the news.
“We continue to invest in top engineering and technical talent while also meaningfully slowing the pace of our overall hiring,” said Google spokeswoman Courtenay Mencini. “In line with this, the volume of requests for our recruiters has gone down. In order to continue our important work to ensure we operate efficiently, we’ve made the hard decision to reduce the size of our recruiting team.”
A company will typically shrink the recruiting organization amid layoffs, since it isn’t likely a large number of hires in the near term. Google is just one of a string of Big Tech and media companies who have shed jobs as the ad market has cratered.
“We continue to slow our expense growth and pace of hiring and ensure our teams are aligned to our highest priorities,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said on the last earnings conference call in July.
Google is dealing with other challenges, including its antitrust legal battle with the Justice Department in a trial that began on Tuesday.
Google will continue let employees access their offices and systems this week, and online systems longer, CNBC reported, following criticism it faced after abruptly shutting access immediately in the layoffs from January.
“We’re supporting everyone impacted with a transition period, outplacement services, and severance as they look for new opportunities here at Google and beyond,” Mencini said.