Sundar Pichai on layoffs in Google: 'Tough to predict the future'

Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Google-parent Alphabet. He was responding to a question on whether Google would "cull" its workforce in 2023.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently said that it's "tough to predict the future" when asked about layoffs in the company. According to previous reports, Google is likely to fire about 10,000 low-performing employees early in 2023.

But addressing a staff meeting, Pichai said Google was making changes to "better weather the storm" of the economy, but he wouldn't rule out cuts, Business Insider reported.

Responding to a question by a staffer on whether Google would "cull" its workforce in 2023, Sundar Pichai was quoted by Insider as saying, "It's really tough to predict the future, so unfortunately, I can't honestly sit here and make forward-looking commitments."

"What we've been trying hard to do, and you've seen the messaging for the past many, many months, is we are trying to make important decisions, be disciplined, prioritise where we can, rationalise where we can so that we are set up to better weather the storm, regardless of what's ahead... I think that's what we should focus on and try and do our best there."

In November, reports emerged of Google managers being asked to identify 6 per cent of employees -- or about 10,000 people -- as low performers in terms of their impact on the business.

Employees rated as poor performers under the new “ranking and performance improvement plan” could be shown the door in early 2023.

Earlier in the year, the managers had been asked to identify only the 2 per cent of the lowest-performing employees.

This, together with layoffs at other tech giants, such as Meta and Amazon, had made some employees at Google nervous, but the company has taken other steps to brace for the souring economy, including a hiring slowdown.

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