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Google employees express concern about lay-offs

Google executives are telling their employees to shape up or ship out, warning that lay-offs are coming if results don’t meet expectations.

Employees who work in the Google Cloud sales department said that senior leadership told them that there will be an “overall examination of sales productivity and productivity in general.”

If third quarter results “don’t look up, [then] there will be blood on the streets,” according to a message conveyed to the sales team. The warning was first reported by Insider.

Employees told the news site that they are fearful of lay-offs after the company quietly extended its hiring freeze this month without making an announcement, the New York Post reports.

The Post you have sought comment from Google.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai told his employees in an all hands meeting late last month that they needed to improve their focus and productivity due to fierce economic headwinds that have forced widespread belt-tightening all throughout the technology sector.

Mr Pichai said that he wanted to solicit ideas from his employees on how to get “better results faster.”

“It’s clear we are facing a challenging macro environment with more uncertainty ahead,” Mr Pichai said.

“There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the head count we have.”

The search engine also announced a two-week hiring freeze last month, but so far it has not reversed its decision — prompting employees to fear the worst, according to Insider.

Since Mr Pichai’s comments, “everyone has been talking about the company tightening its belt,” one employee told Insider.

Google isn’t the only tech company that has put its employees on notice.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and founder of Facebook’s parent company Meta, blamed “one of the worst downturns that we’ve seen in recent history” for a series of cost-cutting measures, including a hiring freeze.

Mr Zuckerberg also made it clear that the company will part ways with employees who do not perform up to par.

“Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” Zuckerberg told an all hands meeting in late June.

Facebook’s social media rival Twitter recently rescinded a job offer to a Palo Alto man as part of the San Francisco-based company’s cutting back on hiring.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal informed employees of the hiring pause in a message earlier this year, citing a recent lag on growth and revenue targets.

The company has been thrown into turmoil since Tesla CEO Elon Musk agreed to buy it for $US44 billion — only to back out of the deal. Twitter is now suing Musk in an effort to enforce the terms of the agreement.

This article originally appeared on NY Post and was reproduced with permission

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Google outage: Explosion at data center injures three electricians

Google suffered a global outage today while an explosion at a data center in the United States left multiple staff injured.

Three electricians were critically injured after an “electrical incident” at the data center in Council Bluffs, in the US state of Iowa, local police and Google told news site SF Gate.

The accident unfolded at about midday Monday (local time) while the electricians were working on a substation near the data center buildings.

All three suffered significant burns after an electrical explosion, the publication reported.

The incident coincided with a major global outage, with users across the world complaining about the search engine going down.

Many users received an error message when they attempted to search.

People in the US, UK, Australia and Singapore reported issues, according to DownDetector.

It was not immediately clear whether the outage was linked to the explosion.

“We are aware of an electrical incident that took place today at Google’s data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, injuring three people onsite who are now being treated,” a Google spokesman told SF Gate.

“The health and safety of all workers is our absolute top priority, and we are working closely with partners and local authorities to thoroughly investigate the situation and provide assistance as needed.”

One of the injured electricians was flown to Nebraska Medical Center, while the other two were taken by ambulance, the publication reported.

They were all conscious and breathing at the time.

The affected data centre, which opened in 2009, is one of Google’s largest.

It is one of 14 in the United states, with there 23 around the world.

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