After Layoffs: Executive Pay Cuts at Google - and How Apple Steered Clear (forbes.com) 36
Fortune reports on what happened next:
As questions piled up over the weekend, Google CEO Sundar Pichai addressed the entire company in a meeting on Monday to answer questions, and announced then that top executives would take a pay cut this year as part of the company's cost reduction measures, Business Insider reported. Pichai said that all roles above the senior vice president level will witness "very significant reduction in their annual bonus," adding that for senior roles the compensation was linked to company performance. It was not immediately clear how big Pichai's own pay cut would be.
Reuters also points out that Pichai "received a massive hike in salary a few weeks before Google announced layoffs." But Fortune makes an interesting comparison: Pichai's move to cut the pay for senior executives comes only weeks after Apple's Tim Cook announced his compensation would be 40% lower amid shareholder pressure. The iPhone maker had a strong 2022 and remains one of the few tech behemoths that hasn't announced layoffs yet.
Last year Apple's share price still dropped 27%, reports Forbes, and "According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is expected next month to report its first quarterly sales decline in over three years."
Yet Apple seems to have avoided layoffs — which Forbes argues is because Apple didn't hire aggressively during the pandemic. Compared to the other Big Tech companies, Apple scaled its workforce at a relatively slow pace and has generally followed the same hiring rate since 2016. While there was a hiring surge in Silicon Valley during the pandemic, Apple added less than 7,000 jobs in 2020....
The tech companies undergoing layoffs right now hired fervently during their pandemic — and even before. Alphabet has consecutively expanded its workforce at least 10% annually since 2013, according to CNBC....
Since 2012, Meta has expanded its workforce by thousands each year. In 2020, Zuckerberg increased headcount by 30% — 13,000 workers. The following year, the social media platform added another 13,000 employees to its payroll. Those two years marked the biggest growth in the company's history.
Amazon has initiated its plan to separate more than 18,000 white-collar professionals from its payroll. In 2021, the online retailer hired an estimated 500,000 employees, according to GeekWire, becoming the second-largest employer in the United States after Walmart. A year later, the company expanded its workforce by 310,000.
Entrepeneur supplies some context about those layoffs at Google: Reports indicate qualifying staff who were let go will receive their full notification period salary plus a severance package beginning at 16 weeks' pay and two additional weeks for every year of employment. Also part of the package: bonuses, vacation time, and health care coverage for up to six months will be paid for, along with job placement and immigration support.
Entrepreneur also notes reports that Google's latest round of layoffs "affected 27 massage therapists across Los Angeles and Irvine."
Reuters also points out that Pichai "received a massive hike in salary a few weeks before Google announced layoffs." But Fortune makes an interesting comparison: Pichai's move to cut the pay for senior executives comes only weeks after Apple's Tim Cook announced his compensation would be 40% lower amid shareholder pressure. The iPhone maker had a strong 2022 and remains one of the few tech behemoths that hasn't announced layoffs yet.
Last year Apple's share price still dropped 27%, reports Forbes, and "According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is expected next month to report its first quarterly sales decline in over three years."
Yet Apple seems to have avoided layoffs — which Forbes argues is because Apple didn't hire aggressively during the pandemic. Compared to the other Big Tech companies, Apple scaled its workforce at a relatively slow pace and has generally followed the same hiring rate since 2016. While there was a hiring surge in Silicon Valley during the pandemic, Apple added less than 7,000 jobs in 2020....
The tech companies undergoing layoffs right now hired fervently during their pandemic — and even before. Alphabet has consecutively expanded its workforce at least 10% annually since 2013, according to CNBC....
Since 2012, Meta has expanded its workforce by thousands each year. In 2020, Zuckerberg increased headcount by 30% — 13,000 workers. The following year, the social media platform added another 13,000 employees to its payroll. Those two years marked the biggest growth in the company's history.
Amazon has initiated its plan to separate more than 18,000 white-collar professionals from its payroll. In 2021, the online retailer hired an estimated 500,000 employees, according to GeekWire, becoming the second-largest employer in the United States after Walmart. A year later, the company expanded its workforce by 310,000.
Entrepeneur supplies some context about those layoffs at Google: Reports indicate qualifying staff who were let go will receive their full notification period salary plus a severance package beginning at 16 weeks' pay and two additional weeks for every year of employment. Also part of the package: bonuses, vacation time, and health care coverage for up to six months will be paid for, along with job placement and immigration support.
Entrepreneur also notes reports that Google's latest round of layoffs "affected 27 massage therapists across Los Angeles and Irvine."
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
... Pichai said that all roles above the senior vice president level will witness "very significant reduction in their annual bonus,"
How many people could there possibly be who are ABOVE senior vice president? So a handful of people will get a smaller bonus. Wow. Big fucking deal
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Google's latest round of layoffs "affected 27 massage therapists across Los Angeles and Irvine."
Holy Fucking Fuck. The stupidity just keeps growing.
Re:Best not look at Apple's hiring strategy. (Score:4, Informative)
How many people could there possibly be who are ABOVE senior vice president?
This list [craft.co] shows 16 people with the title of SVP, President, or above. Whereas this article [businessinsider.com] mentions them losing 36 VPs in one year without differentiating between regular VPs or Senior VPs.
However, a year ago, Google hired this guy [businessinsider.com] as Senior VP, and he does not appear on the first list.
To answer your question, it appears about 20 people with the title of Senior VP which means only a handful above them will see a pay cut. Had Pikachu been a real leader the entire executive staff would get a pay and bonus cut.
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To answer your question, it appears about 20 people with the title of Senior VP which means only a handful above them will see a pay cut. Had Pikachu been a real leader the entire executive staff would get a pay and bonus cut.
I agree with you, but it's obvious the symbolism is important. Just think about how much people yell when the top dogs of a company are given a raise after cutting staff [bizjournals.com].
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How many people could there possibly be who are ABOVE senior vice president?
At Google (or similar tech company)? Someone else offered a list showing about 16 people.
At other businesses, that title can be more prevalent. At banks, for example, a vice president is the most junior of the senior bankers, equivalent to assistant manager or tech lead, and there may be many senior vice presidents below managing director with some people spending their entire careers at that level. Source: Google and The Hierarchy of an Investment Bank [investopedia.com]:
There Have Been A Few Apple Layoffs (Score:2)
Apple has laid off some Channel Sales folks (think, the Apple people that work inside Best Buy) but that's more due to business at places like Best Buy slowing and the numbers of people in those positions are pretty small. Layoffs within a single division are a much different thing than the majority layoffs at the other large tech companies, which include people across much of the business.
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Best Buy seems determined to commit suicide these days.
Nah, it's been like that forever. The problem with Best Buy is that they sell a lot of "tech" products (computers, cellphones, etc.) but they are just another shitty retail store. They don't pay enough to attract people who actually know something, so the typical Best Buy employee is completely clueless.
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Best Buy seems determined to commit suicide these days.
Nah, it's been like that forever. The problem with Best Buy is that they sell a lot of "tech" products (computers, cellphones, etc.) but they are just another shitty retail store. They don't pay enough to attract people who actually know something, so the typical Best Buy employee is completely clueless.
To be honest, they don't really care either. All they care about is whether or not you can sell. Push the most expensive option, push for that extended warranty, and get those numbers up.
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That store closed a little under a year later and the rest of the chain followed soon after.
It's been a while (Score:5, Insightful)
But I do remember the stress of being a recent hire watching the US economy head towards a recession. Knowing that, if there are layoffs, you're gonna be the first one to go - and, being new, not having had much of a chance to build up a nest egg to help carry you through a potentially longer period without a salary. Not to mention that the amount of your unemployment benefits is based on past earnings...
I was fortunate enough to not get laid off when that happened - but I really feel for the people being affected by this.
Now if you are new you are better off (Score:1, Insightful)
Knowing that, if there are layoffs, you're gonna be the first one to go - and, being new, not having had much of a chance to build up a nest egg
These days it seems like you'd be way more likely to stay (if you were actually working) because the companies are trying desperately to reduce inflated salaries.
I read reports in the Google layoffs, that quite a few people who had been there ten years or more were let go. Some with salary over a million dollars!
Since many tech companies still value headcount the
Re: Now if you are new you are better off (Score:2)
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Total compensation including stock and bonus, maybe.
That may well be teh case but I swear I remember it reading salary...
However we all know how accurate the news is. So probably you are right.
That said, it's still something interesting when companies are willing to shed people with a lot of internal company experience, that seems pretty invaluable to me.
Shareholders need to ask the real question... (Score:1)
If people are thinking AI might be able to do the jobs of skilled and licensed professionals then it should already be capable of doing what C-suite and executive people do. That it isn't even being explored is evidence of fiduciary malfeasance.
Extended Skill Set (Score:1)
If people are thinking AI might be able to do the jobs of skilled and licensed professionals then it should already be capable of doing what C-suite and executive people do.
IDK, how far along is AI in being able to sexually harass employees?
Maybe if ChatGPT is cross-wired with Stable Diffusion to send unsolicited pictures...
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Sadly, a lot of hard working talented fokes were hired for jobs that the company didn't need anyways, they just didn't want to be short staffed during a hiring shortage a few years ago.
They are not doing work that is profitable to the company, so getting canned doesn't mean that AI or Execs or even Offshore folks will replace them.
I do think that most companies are stupid if they hire people they don't need, so they will fire people they do need, thus will need to find a way to replace them in a year or so,
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I think with a bit of training, ChatGPT could manage to do a bang-up job of fiduciary malfeasance. There should be plenty of training data for it.
Hire employees for jobs you need. Not a commodity (Score:5, Interesting)
For the past decade or so Employees were hired a lot like Commodity purchases like Frozen Concentrated Orange juice, Oil, Gold...
Big companies didn't need them really, but if they were to go in a direction they would be available and ready at a bargain price. At the same time blocking competition from smaller firms from getting talent that could put their business in danger.
During the past 5 years of the labor shortage, it had increased the cost of labor and the cost to keep them. So, now they need to let people go. They created shortage and now they (and the employees) have to pay for it.
Apple for the most part has been kinda stable, no new business markets, and they hired people for the jobs they need for the business and profitability. Also being such a big name and a well established company, means employees will look to work at Apple even if the job market is hot, so they were able to be more selective, and not play the Employee game.
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For the past decade or so Employees were hired a lot like Commodity purchases like Frozen Concentrated Orange juice, Oil, Gold...
That's because Empire Building never stopped being a game managers play, both when they get into upper management and as a way to get into upper management.
Managers that simply manages their area well and make good profit are not exciting. Managers that do big things are exciting and get more chance to move up. Big things like Stadia. To do big things you need more people, and your empire is only as big as the number of people under you, hence big hiring when there is the chance to do so, just like buyi
Companies never hire for the sake of hiring (Score:2)
On top of that a continuously strong economy means that these companies are interested in
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I wouldn't call it R&D but just CEO's paying for their bet whims.
Actual R&D is actually less focused. Sure they may have some people tinkering with VR concepts, and trying to push its grounds, But not trying to port Second Life onto a new VR platform. These people are are not PHD's, researchers, etc... But just normal guys trying to do a job the boss tells them to do. The Boss may not have a real business plan for it.
While R&D work doesn't always create a profitable product.
A CEO's pet pro
Massage therapists on the payroll? (Score:2)
Why on earth would Google keep massage therapists on the payroll? That kind of thing is usually subcontracted, like cleaning and catering.
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Well, you know, pimpin' ain't easy.
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Why on earth would Google keep massage therapists on the payroll? That kind of thing is usually subcontracted, like cleaning and catering.
What's the point in subcontracting for things like that? If you're a small organisation and don't have time for full time employee, then sure. Otherwise, it's just an an example of a fad which goes in and out. Companies hire all sorts of staff which aren't part of their "core" business.
They are still getting a bonus (Score:2)
There's no good way to lose your job (Score:2)