Meta and Google: How they’re using recession fears to clean house
It seems like the era of Big Tech is coming to an end, even though they’re still making money.
With macroeconomic factors causing companies to cut back on marketing, so Big Tech has begun slowing down hiring and reducing perks.
It is clear that the external economic pressures are a significant contributor to these shifts. However, it will also allow the adaptable behemoths like Google and Meta to clean house.
Alphabet and Meta are both worth over $1 trillion and are seeing an economy with smaller budgets. They have a lot of workers combined, which can now be reduced with strong expectations.
Company executives at Facebook and Google agree that it’s a good idea to cut down on expenses, where there are a lot of “fat” organizations doing nothing productive.
Some employees of Big Tech companies also believe that they have become too bloated. They think that making them smaller could return them to their early startup days, when they were more scrappy and productive.
Lessening employee incomes can save major tech companies. Google and Facebook’s gross revenue is as large as the GDP of some countries, but cutting more than necessary will drive productivity and show that they are financially responsible.
When asked if the company is looking to push out workers, CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg said in an employee meeting that there might be people working at the company that shouldn’t be.
The recent cuts at Facebook and Google have left employees feeling uncertain about their job stability and unsecure.
A Google employee showed that since these new layoffs, the most popular question among employees is whether or not they will be apart of a layoff.
How Meta and Google are in a recession of changing jobs to keep up with the changes
Google employees are accepting of cost-cutting measures.
Employees at this company have been understanding when the need for cuts has been put in place, because they are yet to feel affected by them. They do however feel a sense of uncertainty around what will happen next.
Employees, who are worried about their futures at Google, will now have a tough time finding future prospects. Usually, tech companies would fight for talent like employees from Google. Nowadays, not all tech companies hire.
“There’s definitely a sense of ‘wait, there may not be any chairs at other tech companies if we stop here.’ ” Many Google employees feel this way.
These new dynamics are turning the tech industry upside down and employees have less power over their employers. This change is just as significant as the dot-com boom and bust.
Google is trying to get workers back to work and have them stop asking for more benefits by saying that they are working harder. This is them showing the company just takes care of their shareholders.
The companies Google and Meta have seen a significant decline in the stock price in previous years due to rising inflation, Ukraine’s war and changes to Apple’s privacy settings, as well as the rising competition from TikTok.
It’s a good time to streamline your business, especially when you’re facing challenges.
Implementing unpopular decisions can be difficult. And, the increase in productivity at corporations like Facebook or Google might not be as straightforward if you only increase the workload.
One thing that Google execs should focus on is giving teams clearer directions.
The employee at Google is afraid that people are worried they aren’t working hard enough, even though they are putting in the work. They worry that people could be making bad business decisions, but don’t realize it because they don’t have clear objectives.
Google seems to be unclear about the importance of the future. Though it was attempting to make a new laptop, it has since cancelled the latest planned release.
And in March, Google has laid off 100 Google Cloud workers, giving them 60 days to find new jobs within the company. This came even though Google Cloud has been growing rapidly.
A man who headed Google’s people operations teams from 2006 to 2016, Laszlo Bock, says he agrees with the idea that major tech companies aren’t as operationally disciplined today as they could be. It could be time for a change.
According to Bock, companies should articulate their principles if they want to use AI responsibly.
Google is increasingly focusing its research efforts on AI, and Meta is prioritizing VR/AR work to support its metaverse projects.
Meta recently cut their workplace spending by 10% because of staff cuts. They have also disbanded teams and are giving employees 30 days to find new jobs within the company.
Recently, some of the employees have left to work on metaverse-related projects, which is what Zuckerberg has made his highest priority.
“I think what’s really starting to become clear is that all the money and time and effort that’s been spent on getting all these devices onto the market, very few of them have really faired well,” said he a former Meta employee. “It feels like everything else is less secure in terms of the company’s future.”
Some worry that too much cost cutting would hamper employee creativity, which is what made these companies so successful.
Google’s Senior VP of People Operations, Laszlo Bock states that increasing productivity and innovation at the same time can be difficult to achieve.