Google warns employees of possible layoffs: ‘There will be blood on streets’

Google executives have reportedly warned their employees of dire consequences if things don’t start looking up for the tech giant. The Google Cloud sales team was told there will be an “overall examination of sales productivity and productivity in general” and that if next quarter results “don't look up, there will be blood on the streets,” according to a screenshot first viewed by the Insider.

One employee told the news website that they are worried about possible layoffs after Google put a two-week hiring freeze in place which has yet to be reversed. Employees are worried that the hiring freeze extension could mean bad news for them – even layoffs possibly.

“Everyone has been talking about the company tightening its belt,” one employee said.

Last month, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in an all-hands meeting that productivity needed to improve as the company reported its second consecutive quarter of weaker-than-expected earnings.

Google’s productivity as a company is not in keeping with its headcount, the CEO said in the meeting which was attended by more than 170,000 full-time Google employees.

Pichai, 50, asked employees to “create a culture that is more mission-focused, more focused on our products, more customer focused. We should think about how we can minimize distractions and really raise the bar on both product excellence and productivity.”

During the meeting, Pichai was also asked about potential layoffs – a question he palmed off to Google’s chief people officer, Fiona Cicconi. Cicconi said the company did not have immediate plans to reduce its workforce but did not rule it out completely either.