Anxiety runs high among Google employees after 12,000 job cuts

Google employees, after watching peers at rival tech companies lose their jobs en masse, were anxious about when layoffs would happen to them.

Then on Friday morning, some of them couldn’t get into their corporate accounts.

The company, owned by Alphabet, had finally decided to cut 12,000 employees, or 6 per cent of the workforce.

Employees described a mostly orderly, if impersonal, transition, communicated mostly via the same technology products they helped build, with no direct answers for individuals about why they were included or not.

Inside Google's new Bay View campus — in pictures

Some found out they lost their jobs via messages sent to their personal email addresses.

With no central way to see which roles had been eliminated, the remaining workers took to writing to their peers on messaging app Google Chat to see if it worked.

If not, it meant that person had lost their job, according to a Google employee who requested anonymity.

On messaging apps and internal chat rooms, employees started to pose theories and share anxieties about the future.

The layoffs appeared to be structural, rather than performance-based.

With performance reviews yet to be finalised later this month, some workers fretted that their roles were still at risk of elimination, according to multiple employees who spoke with Bloomberg.

Workers who had lost their jobs gathered on messaging platforms such as Discord and Slack to stay in touch.

For months, the company had refrained from thinning its ranks as tech peers such as Amazon, Microsoft and Meta Platforms laid off thousands of workers.

When the cuts did come, they appeared to impact a wide swath of the company.

“It’s hard for me to believe that after 20 years at #Google I unexpectedly find out about my last day via an email,” one software engineer, Jeremy Joslin, wrote on Twitter.

“What a slap in the face. I wish I could have said goodbye to everyone face to face.”

The company’s prized artificial intelligence teams appeared to escape mostly unscathed.

In a message to staff announcing the layoffs, Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai framed the cuts as a way for the company to sharpen its focus on AI.

But Area 120, an in-house incubator for new ideas, was decimated. The unit’s managing partner and workers on three projects slated to be folded into Google were spared, but virtually all other employees were laid off, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Google employee Dallas Barnes, a visual designer, wrote on Twitter that he was the only member of his team who had survived the cuts.

“The amount of sadness, frustration and confusion I’m feeling right now is hard to put into words,” he wrote.

The Alphabet Workers Union, a so-called minority union that does not have collective bargaining rights, said the layoffs underscored the importance of worker organising.

“This is egregious and unacceptable behaviour by a company that made $17 billion dollars in profit last quarter alone,” Parul Koul, executive chair of Alphabet Workers Union, said.

“With billions in profits and executive compensation untouched, our jobs should not be on the chopping block.”

There had been a sense of foreboding among Googlers about the possibility of layoffs, especially as other tech companies started to announce cuts to their workforce in recent weeks, said Keith Chaney, who worked on Google’s partnerships strategy team for about a year. He lost his job on Friday.

“I wasn’t super shocked,” he said. “There was a looming thought that it could happen. I just didn’t know to what extent and when.”

Mr Chaney said he was eager for the chance to embrace entrepreneurship. Last year, he launched a start-up called Peadbo, a platform that lets users build a “personal advisory board” dedicated to their personal or professional growth.

Company%20profile

%3Cp%3EName%3A%20Cashew%0D%3Cbr%3EStarted%3A%202020%0D%3Cbr%3EFounders%3A%20Ibtissam%20Ouassif%20and%20Ammar%20Afif%0D%3Cbr%3EBased%3A%20Dubai%2C%20UAE%0D%3Cbr%3EIndustry%3A%20FinTech%0D%3Cbr%3EFunding%20size%3A%20%2410m%0D%3Cbr%3EInvestors%3A%20Mashreq%2C%20others%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

ESSENTIALS

The flights
Fly Etihad or Emirates from the UAE to Moscow from 2,763 return per person return including taxes.
Where to stay
Trips on the Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian cost from US$16,995 (Dh62,414) per person, based on two sharing.

Jetour T1 specs

Engine: 2-litre turbocharged

Power: 254hp

Torque: 390Nm

Price: From Dh126,000

Available: Now

Our family matters legal consultant

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

The specs

Engine: 1.5-litre, 4-cylinder turbo

Transmission: CVT

Power: 170bhp

Torque: 220Nm

Price: Dh98,900

The past Palme d'Or winners

2018 Shoplifters, Hirokazu Kore-eda

2017 The Square, Ruben Ostlund

2016 I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach

2015 Dheepan, Jacques Audiard

2014 Winter Sleep (Kış Uykusu), Nuri Bilge Ceylan

2013 Blue is the Warmest Colour (La Vie d'Adèle: Chapitres 1 et 2), Abdellatif Kechiche, Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux

2012 Amour, Michael Haneke

2011 The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick

2010 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Lung Bunmi Raluek Chat), Apichatpong Weerasethakul

2009 The White Ribbon (Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte), Michael Haneke

2008 The Class (Entre les murs), Laurent Cantet

While you're here

Cheryl Thompson: Stop the practice of blackface that's as Canadian as hockey

Kareem Shaheen: Alghabra outshines the racists who malign him

Kareem Shaheen: In Canada, I have finally found a home

Emergency phone numbers in the UAE

Estijaba – 8001717 – number to call to request coronavirus testing

Ministry of Health and Prevention – 80011111

Dubai Health Authority – 800342 – The number to book a free video or voice consultation with a doctor or connect to a local health centre

Emirates airline – 600555555

Etihad Airways – 600555666

Ambulance – 998

Knowledge and Human Development Authority – 8005432 ext. 4 for Covid-19 queries