Google's parent, Alphabet, has laid off 12 thousand employees worldwide or around 6% of the total employees. However, according to this investor, the amount is still lacking, so Google was asked to lay off more.
That opinion was expressed by Christopher Hohn, whose company has a stake worth USD 6 billion in Alphabet. In his letter to Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, he suggested more layoffs.
According to him, in the last 5 years, Alphabet recruited too many new employees, adding about 100 thousand employees. In the first 9 months of 2022 alone, there were more than 30 thousand new employees. The amount was seen as excessive and undermined the company's funds.
"The decision to cut 12,000 jobs is a step in the right direction, but does not reverse the massive employee growth that has occurred in 2022. Management must do more," he wrote.
"I believe management should aim to reduce staff to around 150,000, the same number of employees at the end of 2021," he added.
This means that because currently Alphabet's employees are around 186 thousand, the total number of employee cuts requested is around 30 thousand people. So more than 2 times the layoffs that have been carried out at this time of 12 thousand employees.
Not only that, Alphabet was asked to reconsider the amount of employee income. In 2021, the average salary of their employees is around USD 300 thousand which is considered too big.
"Competition for employees in the technology sector has fallen significantly which has allowed Alphabet to reduce compensation per employee. In particular, Alphabet has had to limit stock compensation due to current stock price pressures," he concluded. It is not known so far whether Google's leadership will grant the request.