Chris Hohn wants Google CEO to cut 14 per cent of jobs

Google just laid off 12,000 employees, which shocked people, but Chris Hohn, one of the company's investors, is not content with the number of reductions that have been made. Chris Hohn, who reportedly has a stake of around $6 billion in Google's parent company Alphabet, has advised Google CEO Sundar Pichai to lay off thousands more employees as the latest job cuts will not. They went so deep to control expenses.

In a letter to Pichai, the investor says management should cut headcount to around 1,50,000, which requires Google to lay off 20 per cent of the total workforce. The company has already laid off 6 per cent of employees. This suggests that the investor expects Google to cut 14 per cent more workers.

This is not the first letter from the investor Chris Hohn, and one was sent before the 12,000 job cuts were made. The above letter said that Alphabet's headcount had significantly increased, adding more than 1,00,000 employees in the past five years.

In the first nine months of 2022, about 30,000 employees were added to the company's workforce, he said, adding that the latest decision to cut 12,000 jobs "is a step in the right direction, but it does not reverse the very strong headcount growth of 2022." He also wrote that "ultimately management will need to go further," and the letter ends with the investor saying he "hopes to have further dialogue with (Sundar Pichai) on these matters." All this suggests that Google might consider firing more employees in 2023.

Hohn also welcomed Google's first move to cut thousands of jobs to help rein in Alphabet's cost base, and he also wrote that he understands that the decision to lay off people is difficult. But Chris Hohn suggested that Google should plan to cut more jobs and align the workforce with Alphabet, which is currently down to 1,50,000.

Not so, as the investor also suggested that Google CEO Sundar Pichai should also consider lowering each employee's compensation because he feels competition in the tech industry has diminished. He wrote in the letter that the median salary for a Google employee was quite high, at $3,000,000 a year, and that the median salary was also "much higher."