Google has avoided mass layoffs so far, but employees worry their time may be coming
Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks on stage during the annual Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, May 8, 2018.
Stephen Lam | Reuters
As industry-wide layoffs hit bigger tech names, some Google workers worry they’re next.
While Google has so far avoided the widespread job cuts that have hit tech companies, particularly those supported by a slumping ad market, internal anxiety is on the rise, according to documents viewed by CNBC and employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Alphabet executives have stressed the need to sharpen “focus,” bring down costs of projects and make the company 20% more efficient. There’s also been a recent change in performance reviews, and some employees point to declining travel budgets and less swag as signs that something bigger may be on the horizon.
In July, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai launched the “Simplicity Sprint” in an effort to bolster efficiency during an uncertain economic environment. Just a few miles up the road, Meta told employees this month that it’s laying off 13% of its staff, or more than 11,000 employees, as the company reckons with declining ad revenue. Snap announced a 20% cut in August, and Twitter just slashed about half its workforce under the leadership of new owner Elon Musk. Elsewhere in Silicon Valley, HP said on Tuesday it plans to lay off 4,000 to 6,000 employees over the next three years.
Google’s business hasn’t been hit as hard as many of its peers, but the combination of a potential recession, soaring inflation and rising interest rates is having a clear impact. Last month, the company said YouTube’s ad revenue shrank from a year earlier as Google generated its weakest period of growth since 2013, other than one quarter during the pandemic. Google said at the time that it would significantly reduce headcount growth in the fourth quarter.
The crypto market, which put a dent in Google’s latest results, has fallen even further with the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, leading to increased concerns about industry contagion.
‘Don’t fire us please’
Cuts at Google have already taken place around the edges.
The company canceled the next generation of its Pixelbook laptop, slashed funding to its Area 120 in-house incubator and said it would be shuttering its digital gaming service Stadia.
Concerns about terminations are mounting, at least in certain corners. And some employees are turning to memes to express their anxieties through humor.
One internal meme shared with CNBC shows a before-and-after animated character. On the before side, the figure has his hands raised with the caption “inflation pay rise!” On the after side, a frightened character sits alongside the caption, “don’t fire us please.”
Another meme has names of tech companies — “Meta, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft” — that recently conducted layoffs next to an image of a worried anime character. There were also memes created in reference to a statement last week from activist investor TCI Fund Management, which called on Pichai to cut salaries and headcount through “aggressive action.”
Among the workforce, Pichai found himself on the defensive in September, as he was forced to explain the company’s changing position after years of supercharged growth. Executives said at the time that there would be small cuts, and they didn’t rule out layoffs.
At a more recent all-hands meeting, a number of questions regarding the potential for layoffs were highly rated by staffers on Google’s internal question-asking system called Dory. There were also questions about whether executives mismanaged headcount.
“It appears that we added 36k full-time role YoY, increasing headcount by about 24%,” one top-rated question read. “Many teams feel like they are losing headcount, not gaining it. Where did this headcount go? In hindsight, and given concerns around productivity, should we have hired so rapidly?”
Employees wanted details following the company’s latest earnings call and comments from CFO Ruth Porat regarding possible cuts.
One question read: “Can we get some more clarity on how we’re approaching headcount for 2023? Do we have any sense of how long we need to plan for difficult headwinds?”
Other questioners asked if employees “should expect any direct consequence to our teams, direction and/or compensation to reduced profits we saw in the earnings call” and wondered, “how are we going to achieve 20% more productivity? Will refocus be enough or are we expecting layoffs?”
Change to performance reviews
Furthering employee stress levels was a recent change to performance reviews and upcoming evaluation check-ins.
Earlier this year, Google said it was ditching its long-held practice of handing out lengthy promotion packets, which were long forms employees needed to fill out and that included reviews from bosses and co-workers. The company switched to a streamlined process it calls Googler Reviews and Development (GRAD).
A Google spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the GRAD system was launched “to help employee development, coaching, learning and career progression throughout the year,” adding that it “helps establish clear expectations and provide employees with regular feedback.”
Google said a new system would result in higher pay, but workers say the overhaul has left more room for ambiguity in ratings at a time when the company is looking for ways to cut costs.
The planned overhaul has already run into problems. The company decided to end its use of Betterworks, a program that was supposed to help with evaluating performance, employees told CNBC. Executives said they planned to instead use a home-grown tool, but the change has come uncomfortably close to expected year-end performance checks.
A guide titled “Support Check-Ins,” which are performance reviews targeting certain employees, began appearing in internal forums. The document, viewed by CNBC, says for those who receive the review, “the current performance trajectory is headed toward, or already is in, a lower rating.”
Three steps are recommended for check-ins. The first directs workers to “breathe,” before taking in managers’ feedback. Second is, “understand the feedback,” and third is to “devise a plan.” The document says check-ins may affect 10% to 20% of staffers over the course of a year.
Add it all up, and one big question employees are asking is — will a bunch of small cuts turn into something grander in the future?
CNBC reported last month that employees and executives clashed on the topic of cutbacks to things like swag, travel and holiday celebrations. Workers complained about a lack of transparency around travel cuts and asked why the company wasn’t saving money by cutting executive salaries.
Google engineering leaders recently began cracking down on employees’ ability to access links to the internal meme generator called Memegen, a repository of user-generated memes that has long been a part of the company’s open culture.
Last month, a Google vice president of corporate engineering said employees need to remove Memegen links from their profile pages, internally known as “Moma.” Engineering directors said in an internal message that having a Memegen link on profiles “prevents Googlers from sharpening their focus.”
Workers naturally flocked to Memegen to make fun of the decision.
Elon Musk, during a news conference with President Donald Trump, inside the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on May 30, 2025.
Tom Brenner | The Washington Post | Getty Images
Sales of Tesla cars in Europe plunged in July, in the company’s seventh consecutive month of declines, while Chinese rival BYD saw a monthly surge, data released on Thursday showed.
New car registrations of Tesla vehicles totaled 8,837 in July, down 40% year-on-year, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, or ACEA. BYD meanwhile recorded 13,503 new registrations in July, up 225% annually.
Tesla’s declines took place even as overall sales of battery electric cars rose in Europe, ACEA data showed.
Elon Musk‘s automaker faces a number of challenges in Europe including intense ongoing competition and reputational damage to the brand from the billionaire’s incendiary rhetoric and relationship with the Trump administration.
Tesla has struggled globally in recent times. The company’s auto sales revenue fell in the second quarter of the year and Musk warned that the automaker “could have a few rough quarters” ahead.
One of Tesla’s issues is that it has not had a major refresh of its car line-up. The company said this year that it is working on a more affordable electric car with “volume production” planned for the second half of 2025, with investors hoping this will reinvigorate sales.
Thomas Besson, head of automobile sector research at Kepler Cheuvreux, said Tesla management has been trying to “convince investors that Tesla is not really a car company” by talking about artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomy.
“They talk about almost everything else but the car they’re selling at a slower pace now because effectively, the age of their vehicle is much higher than the competition and the latest products have not been as successful as hoped, notably the Cybertruck,” Besson told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday.
But the U.S. automaker is up against Chinese players, which are launching models aggressively and ramping up their push into Europe. BYD has led that charge, opening showrooms up across the continent and launching its cars at competitive prices over the last two years.
Chinese brands commanded a record market share rate of more than 5% in the first half of the year, which is a record high, according to data from JATO Dynamics released last month.
It’s not only Tesla feeling the heat from Chinese competition. Jeep owner Stellantis, South Korea’s Hyundai Group and Japan’s Toyota and Suzuki, all posted year-on-year declines in European new car registrations in July.
By contrast, Volkswagen, BMW and Renault Group, were among those that logged increases in new European car registrations across the month.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang waves to a crowd as he leaves the China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE) in Beijing on July 17, 2025.
Jade Gao | Afp | Getty Images
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said there’s a “real possibility” the company brings its advanced Blackwell processor to China as he urges the U.S. government to open up access for American chipmakers.
He also predicted the artificial intelligence market in the world’s second-biggest economy will grow 50% next year.
“The opportunity for us to bring Blackwell to the China market is a real possibility,” Huang said on Wednesday in a call for Nvidia’s latest quarterly results. “We just have to keep advocating the importance of American tech companies to be able to lead and win the AI race, and help make the American tech stack the global standard.”
Huang personally visited the White House in July and August to secure export licenses for Nvidia’s current-generation chip for Chinese AI, called the H20. In August, the White House announced that President Donald Trump and Huang had struck a deal in which Nvidia would receive export licenses in exchange for 15% of China sales of the H20 going to the U.S. government.
After the meeting, Trump said he was open to making a deal for Blackwell chips, which is Nvidia’s latest AI technology that currently comprises the majority of its data center revenue.
Huang has said that it is better for Chinese AI developers to use Nvidia’s chips rather than force them to use homegrown Chinese options by preventing exports, which could incentivize the Chinese tech industry to catch up.
If Nvidia were to release a Blackwell chip in China, it could spur a large amount of sales as Chinese AI developers opt for the most powerful chips available. Nvidia would have to modify its Blackwell chips for the U.S. market to make them slower in certain aspects in order to comply with U.S. export regulations.
“The Blackwell is super-duper advanced. I wouldn’t make a deal with that,” Trump said in August, before adding that it was possible to make a deal for a “somewhat enhanced in a negative way” version of Blackwell.
Huang’s bullish comments on Wednesday come after the company reported second-quarter year-over-year revenue growth of 56% to $54 billion, despite not selling a single H20 chip to China during the quarter. Nvidia said it released $180 million in H20 inventory to a customer outside of China, which accounted for $650 million in sales.
Nvidia said it is not counting on any H20 sales in the October quarter as part of its forecast for $54 billion in revenue, but that the company could sell between $2 billion and $5 billion in H20 chips, depending on the geopolitical environment.
“If we had more orders, we can build more,” Nvidia finance chief Colette Kress said on the call with analysts.
Nvidia said that while it had received some licenses after the meeting with Trump, the U.S. government has yet to publish official regulations outlining how its cut of sales will work.
“USG officials have expressed an expectation that the USG will receive 15% of the revenue generated from licensed H20 sales, but to date, the USG has not published a regulation codifying such requirement,” Kress said.
Huang told analysts that China is the second-largest AI market in the world.
“The China market I’ve estimated to be about $50 billion of opportunity for us this year, if we were able to address it with competitive products,” Huang said. “And if it’s $50 billion this year, you would expect it to grow, say, 50% per year.”
Recent reports have indicated that the Chinese government is encouraging AI developers to use homegrown chips over those from Nvidia.
“We’re still waiting on several of the geopolitical issues going back and forth between the governments and the companies trying to determine their purchases and what they want to do,” Kress said.
WATCH: Nvidia sales drop more than 4% as chipmaker says no Q2 H20 sales to China-based customers
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