Google’s parent company may lay off 10,000 ‘underperforming’ employees starting next year: Report

At a time when Silicon Valley companies are on a firing spree, Google is one of the few companies that has stayed away from showing its employees the exit door. However, this could change soon as a report claims that the pressure to improve the productivity of its workers is forcing the company to rethink its decisions.
The Information recently reported that Alphabet – the parent company of Google – is implementing a new performance management system that will help team leaders and managers to get an in-depth idea about underperforming employees. These underperforming employees – which could be up to 10,000 – may then be fired from the company. The report claims that this could happen as early as next year.
The new rating system, which Google reportedly announced in May, will also help managers avoid paying low-performing employees bonuses and stock grants. The new system also reduces the percentage of employees that can score a high rating.
“Under the new system, managers have been asked to categorise 6% of employees, or roughly 10,000 people, as low performers in terms of their impact for the business,” The Information cited people with knowledge of the system as saying. The report also mentions that in the previous performance review system, managers were expected to put 2% of employees under the low-performing employees’ umbrella.

Lay-offs at Amazon, Meta, Twitter
If Google moves ahead with firing as many as 10,000 employees, it will join the ranks of companies like Amazon, Facebook parent-Meta and Twitter that have let go of thousands of employees in the last few weeks.
Reports suggest that Amazon started laying off about 10,000 employees recently. Meta also fired 11,000 employees in order to maintain the company’s balance sheet and Twitter’s 7,500 employee force is now down to 2,300 people, Business Insider reported citing a person familiar with the company’s operations.