The news raised some criticism as Sundar Pichai-led Alphabet trimmed around 6% of its workforce in January.
Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet, earned a total compensation of $226 million (approximately Rs 1,854 crore) in 2022, the company said in a securities filing on Friday. The news comes amid several cost-cutting measures by Alphabet and has raised many eyebrows.
Even though Sundar Pichai’s pay is reportedly more than 800 times the median employee’s pay at the company, his total compensation last year included stock awards of about $218 million (or around Rs 1,788 crore). The revelation of the amount of Pichai’s compensation garnered attention as Google’s parent announced to cut 12,000 jobs, or around 6% of its workforce, in January to lower its costs.
The Sundar Pichai-led company was prepared for “a different economic reality” and the CEO took “full responsibility” for the decisions that led to the layoffs. Apart from downsizing the workforce, the company also said to reduce bonuses and curtail on-campus facilities for employees like free snacks, gym, laptops, etc. Some criticize the company saying that it prioritizes executive pay over the pay and overall well-being of its employees.
Earlier this month, several employees at Google’s offices in London staged a walkout on Tuesday to protest against what they call “unfair” job cuts. These employees demanded that the company thoroughly engage in conversation with the workers and seriously examine alternatives to layoffs. A similar sort of protest was witnessed in Switzerland last month where employees at Google’s Zurich office staged a walkout, for the second time, to protest against the job cuts.
Not just Sundar Pichai-led Alphabet, several tech companies including, Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta, Elon Musk-led Twitter, and Satya Nadella-led Microsoft, among others, have laid off thousands of employees in an attempt to gear up for a global economic slowdown. In a nutshell, a setback in consumer spending due to high inflation and interest rates along with the threat of a looming recession this year has pushed corporates to keep a lid on their spending.
