Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google parent Alphabet, reportedly informed its employees that the company will be “slowing down the pace of hiring for the rest of the year.” The statement follows predictions from a number of analysts that the US will experience a recession by the end of this year.
According to an internal memo cited by The Verge, the CEO explained that the tech giant will have to “be more entrepreneurial” and work with “greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger than we’ve shown on sunny days.”
“We aren’t freezing hiring entirely”- Pichai
In the memo, Pichai also said that the company “isn’t freezing hiring entirely; it’ll still hire engineering, technical and other critical roles”, but the pullback will mean “pausing development and re-deploying resources to higher priority areas.”
He wrote in the memo saying that “for the balance of 2022 and 2023, we’ll focus our hiring on engineering, technical and other critical roles, and make sure that the great talent we do hire is aligned with our long-term priorities.”
Pichai also said that at this time, the company will pause ongoing projects and redeploy staff to higher priority areas.
“Making the company more efficient is up to all of us– we’ll be creating more ways for you all to engage and share ideas to help, so stay tuned.”