Google Falters: Internet Giant Slows Hiring as Ad Revenue Drops, Stock Takes Hit

Google CEO Sundar Pichai told analysts that the tech giant plans to slow the pace of hiring after reporting the company’s fifth consecutive quarter of declining sales growth. Shares of Google parent Alphabet Inc. have dropped by more than 9 percent in intraday trading.

YouTube, owned by Google, announced a drop in advertising revenue for the first time since reports began.

Shares in Alphabet Inc. have fallen by more than 9 percent as of 3:00 p.m. eastern today, following these poor reports for the tech company, which reflect a wider downturn in tech stocks.

Via the Wall Street Journal:

The Google results point to continued fragility for the digital-advertising industry, which has been clobbered in recent months. Some of Google’s core properties, including YouTube and search, which have long been drivers of the company’s overall performance, showed surprising weakness.

In a period when the company’s executives have talked about becoming more disciplined in hiring, Alphabet’s full-time employee base increased by almost 12,800 workers in the quarter, the biggest change on record. Alphabet shares fell more than 6% in after-hours trading.

“Times like this are clarifying,” said CEO Sundar Pichai, in a call with analysts after earnings were announced. He said Google has begun a push to become more efficient “by realigning resources to invest in our biggest growth opportunities” and that employee growth will be “significantly lower” in the fourth quarter.

Pichai emphasizing a reduction in employee growth is in line with other trends in the industry. Facebook recently announced a hiring freeze amid continued economic woes, and Amazon plans to close all but one of its U.S.-based customer call centers.

More prominently, Twitter has been in the news over Elon Musk’s plans to cut 75 percent of the company’s workforce when he takes over the company, with the acquisition deal currently expected to close at the end of this week. Even if the deal somehow does not go through, Twitter’s current management was independently planning to cut employee numbers by approximately a quarter.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.