“Adult daycare”: mass layoffs begin

Nicole Tsai, whose role at Google was responsible for the Partner Services program, according to her LinkedIn profile, had vlogged about “a day in my life” at the company – enjoying free candy, games, catered lunches and coconut water, Harry Potter– themed meeting rooms and massage chairs.

“I’m heading to this butterfly-themed meeting room to take my first meeting, then I’m going to head to the confetti room to take my next meeting — it’s so shiny and beautiful here,” he said. she declared in a tiktok videos earlier this month.

“Then I’ll go upstairs and have some lunch. They always have pizza and a variety of different vegetables and meats, the food is always really good and of course everything you see in the office is free.

In the video, Ms Tsai ended her day by tapping a “Doogler”, or “Googling dog”, and giving a ghost tour of the office, before settling into a massage chair to relax.

The viral trend of young employees at tech companies like Google, Meta, Twitter and LinkedIn showing off their luxury social advantageswhile seemingly doing little actual work, has sparked debate online in recent months, with some calling the companies “adult daycares.”

But with the once unassailable tech sector facing a huge downturn, many of those same employees are now facing the axe.

On Friday, Google’s parent company Alphabet announced it would cut nearly 12,000 jobs worldwide, the latest in a series of mass layoffs across the industry.

The dismissed workers were reportedly notified by email, although in some cases they did not know they had been terminated until they arrived at work, where they were denied access badges.

“The terminated Google employees were informed of their dismissal via email overnight,” reads a Twitter “Community Notes” clarification, quoting NPR. “Those who didn’t check their emails before going to work didn’t realize they had been fired until they tried to use their access badges.”

The job cuts represent just over 6% of its total global workforce of 187,000 people.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the cuts came after “rigorous review”.

“Over the past two years, we’ve had periods of dramatic growth,” he said.

“To support and fuel this growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today. We have undertaken a rigorous review of all product areas and functions to ensure our people and roles are aligned with our highest priorities as a business. The roles we are eliminating reflect the outcome of this review. »

In a video viewed near three million Once, Ms. Tsai documented “a day in my life when I was fired at Google”.

“I woke up to this really disturbing text from my boss…I rushed downstairs to find I had lost access to pretty much everything,” she said.

“I called my boss back and we just sobbed on the phone. It was just like a really bad game of Russian roulette, there was no consistency around who was being released. It also wasn’t based on performance, so it was really hit or miss.

Ms Tsai said seeing other “shocked and blind” colleagues posting on LinkedIn was “not good for my mental health”.

“Honestly, I spent so much of the day crying that I felt so tired of being sad and wanted to do something that would make me feel better,” she said. “Luckily I have an annual pass, so I headed over to Disneyland.”

Posting on LinkedIn, Ms Tsai said she was “completely blindsided by this decision, but there is some comfort in knowing that I am not the only one”.

“It’s always been my dream to work at Google and I’m grateful to have made that dream come true,” she wrote. “I certainly enjoyed every minute as a Googler.”

She listed her highlights as “visiting 10 Google offices,” “presenting at conferences and universities,” launching the “Delivery Readiness Index with an amazing team,” and “leading [email protected], the employee resource group “.

“I don’t know what the next step is: get certified as a yoga teacher? Growing my Etsy shop plant business? Almost at my 1000th sale! she wrote.

“I will spend time looking for new opportunities and enjoying this free time.”

Many of his TikTok followers expressed their sympathy.

“I am amazed at how much [tech companies] like Google will always have endless revenue and always lay people off. It just shows how little they care about their workers,” one person commented on their video.

“My heart goes out to you and your colleagues,” wrote another.

But some took the opportunity to troll the technician.

“I mean I’m amazed the layoffs didn’t happen faster,” one person wrote below the previous video.

“It makes me understand the massive layoffs,” said another.

“Basically an adult daycare center,” wrote a third.

Google’s layoffs come after a major wave of job cuts at major tech companies.

On Jan. 5, Amazon announced it would cut more than 18,000 jobs from its workforce, citing “the uncertain economy” and the fact that it had been “hiring quickly” during the pandemic.

During Covid, the online retail giant had launched a hiring spree to meet a surge in delivery demand, doubling its global workforce between early 2020 and early 2022.

It was the biggest of recent job cuts in the US tech sector and the biggest for the Seattle-based company.

At the end of September, the group had 1.54 million employees worldwide.

In November, Meta – owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – announced the cut of 11,000 jobs, or around 13% of staff, in what CEO Mark Zuckerberg called “the toughest changes we’ve made in the world”. ‘History of Meta’.

Mr Zuckerberg told his 87,000 employees he expected the increase in e-commerce and online activity during the pandemic to continue, but admitted he was wrong.

Meta’s poor performance in 2022 caused its share price to plummet, along with a sharp drop in sales and stagnant user numbers.

On January 18, Microsoft announced that it would be laying off 10,000 employees in the coming months.

The cuts were “in response to macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities,” the Windows operating system maker said in a U.S. regulatory filing.

The plan follows two small rounds of layoffs in 2022, one in July affecting less than 1% of the workforce and a second in October targeting less than 1,000 people.

Microsoft, which has made a major hiring spree during the pandemic to meet strong demand for its cloud computing software and services, currently has 221,000 employees, including 122,000 in the United States, according to its website.

And just a week after his successful takeover, Elon Musk fired half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees in November as part of his major overhaul of the struggling company.

Workers around the world have been kicked out and taken to Twitter to express their frustration or disbelief and say goodbye to one of Silicon Valley’s most iconic companies.

The culling is part of Musk’s effort to find ways to pay off the mammoth $44 billion contract for which he incurred billions of dollars in debt.

In late August, Snapchat’s parent company Snap laid off around 20% of its employees, or about 1,200 people, in a bid for the photo-centric messaging app to fend for itself amid competition and security issues. income.

As its user count continues to grow – 363 million daily users in October – it grapples with shrinking profits and competition from other apps, such as TikTok.

— with AFP