Google is reportedly bracing for massive layoffs early next year. Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai has offered no assurance to worried Google employees that it won’t happen.

In a companywide meeting with staff, Pichai said “it’s really tough to predict the future, so, unfortunately, I can’t honestly sit here and make forward-looking commitments”.

He told employees that what the company is trying hard to do “is to make important decisions, be disciplined, prioritise where we can, rationalise where we can, so that we are set up to better weather the storm, regardless of what’s ahead”.

“I think that’s what we should focus on and try and do our best there,” Pichai added.

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Several Big Tech companies including Meta, Twitter, Cisco, Intel, Amazon and HP Inc have slashed jobs or announced plans to do so. Google and Apple are the only Big Tech firms remaining that have not announced any mega job cut globally.

Pichai had said that Google would slow the pace of its hiring and make the company 20 per cent more efficient. A report last month claimed that Alphabet is gearing up to lay off about 10,000 “poor performing” employees, or 6 per cent of its workforce.

Performance reviews are probably top-of-mind for many in the tech industry. Insider reported that Meta is directing managers to designate more of their workforce as low-performers than before, stoking fears of more cuts to come.

According to a report in The Information, Google plans to ease out 10,000 employees through a new ranking and performance improvement plan. Managers ask to categorize 6 per cent of employees, or roughly 10,000 people under the new system as low performers in terms of their impact for the business.

Alphabet has a workforce of nearly 187,000 employees. Google is not hiring new employees.