Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is slowing down it’s hiring process for the rest of the year 2020. On Wednesday, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of both the companies, sent an email to the employees.
Sundar Pichai’s Memo
Sundar Pichai’s memo stated It has been more than two months since we have closed the first office of Google in Asia out of an affluence of caution around the spread of COVID-19. We have never imagined how much things could change and how quickly for many people all over the world.
We are only in the first quarter of the year 2020. It has been the most unusual year in memory, and none of us predicted that we would be working from home during this global pandemic.
Despite these strange circumstances, it is remarkable we see step up to face this challenge by doing our best. We have continued to show up for people in small and big, whether it is by providing authoritative and accurate information to keep families safe or by supporting infrastructure and products to keep services running. We are also delivering great content to keep the spirit of the people up in tough moments. We have also committed more than $800 million in loans, grants, and ad credits to help small businesses and others affected by COVID-19. Google.org has also committed $50 million (roughly Rs. 385 crores), plus an additional $2,500 (approximately Rs. 1,92,000) in gift-matching per Googler to help communities all around the world.
Apart from these efforts, many teams have been focusing on helping governments and public health officials to slow the spread of the disease. We have released insights based on anonymized, aggregated data to promote public health experts in measuring the impact of social distancing. We have announced a joint effort with Apple on contact tracing designed with more robust privacy protections. And we have invested in ramping up testing (including through Verily) and the production of PPE and lifesaving medical devices.
I am very proud of the way we have come together across the company, and I want all of us to continue living up to our essential mission in the coming weeks and months. It would not be easy. Just like the financial crisis of 2008, the entire global economy is disturbing, and Alphabet and Google are not safe for the effects of this global pandemic. We exist in an ecosystem of interconnected businesses and partnerships, many of whom are feeling significant pain.
The clear lesson we have learned from 2008 is preparing early is key to weathering the storm and developing in a position to continue long-term growth, as we have done over the preceding decade. So I want to share with you our immediate plans on what we think is the best path forward.
We are reevaluating the speed of our investment plans for the rest of the of 2020. That is going to start by taking a more critical look at the pace of hiring for the remainder of the year. For context, we recruited 20,000 Googlers in 2019 and targeting a similar number for 2020. We have already on-boarded more than 4,000 Nooglers and Characters in the first quarter of the year, and thousands of further new hires are starting soon. We are not only facing delays in getting everyone their essential equipment, such as security keys and laptops, but there are also challenges in getting Nooglers up to speed, trained and productive on their new teams.
We believe now it is the time to significantly slow down the pace of hiring while continuing momentum in a small number of strategic areas where users and businesses rely on Google for their ongoing support, and where our growth is important to their success. By turning back our plans in other areas, we can also ensure Google will emerge from this year at a more proper size and scale than we would do otherwise. That means we need to carefully prioritize the hiring process of our employees who will address our most prominent user and business needs. Your leads will always be in touch with you about how it will work for your team.
If you have any idea about how we can free up or redeploy resources to make us work more efficiently and support our priorities, I welcome your thoughts and also invite you to share them by replying here.
Among this uncertainty, the bright spot for me is to watch everyone pitch in to help your teammates and communities and making things better for the people we serve. We will also need the same level of ingenuity, energy, and teamwork in the coming weeks and months. Working together, I am confident that we will emerge from this challenge in a stronger position.
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