What you need to know
- Google has put all hiring on hold for the time being.
- The hiring freeze will last two weeks while the company evaluates its "headcount needs."
- All existing job offers will be honored, but the company will not offer contract extensions for now.
Google will stop hiring new employees over the next two weeks, a decision that came on the heels of its decision to slow down recruitment for the rest of the year, The Information reports.
According to the report, Prabhakar Raghavan, a senior vice president at Google, told employees in an email that the hiring freeze comes as the company reviews its "headcount needs."
"We’ll use this time to review our headcount needs and align on a new set of prioritized Staffing Requests for the next three months,” Raghavan said in the email obtained by The Information.
Fortunately, those who have already received contracts from Google will not be affected by the hiring freeze. However, the Mountain View-based tech behemoth will not renew contracts that are about to expire.
Google's latest move comes just a week after CEO Sundar Pichai stated in an internal memo seen by The Verge that the company would reduce hiring for the rest of the year. The goal is to take a "more entrepreneurial" approach in light of global macro-economic conditions.
"In some cases, that means consolidating where investments overlap and streamlining processes," Pichai said in the memo. "In other cases, that means pausing development and re-deploying resources to higher priority areas."
Google confirmed the two-week hiring freeze, which aims to give the company more time to rethink its hiring process.
“As Sundar announced, we are slowing hiring for the rest of the year," a Google representative said in a press statement. "In line with that, we’re pausing most new offers for two weeks to enable teams to prioritize their roles and hiring plans for the rest of the year."
Other tech giants have made similar moves in recent weeks. Earlier this month, Meta announced that it would slash hiring for engineering roles by 30% this year amid uncertain economic conditions.
Twitter also paused hiring in May, and two executives left just weeks before Elon Musk was supposed to complete his now-cancelled takeover bid.
