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Everyone's doing it, we might be in a recession, now is the best time. Their announcement both follows a trend and gets lost in the noise, it doesn't stand out as possibly bad management.

Plus someone was saying that it reduces inflationary pressures for employees. I.e. you put a lot of people out on the job market and you scare others inside the company, who are now suddenly happy to still have a job, ergo they stop asking as much for raises or for high salaries when they apply.

> Why would they want to?

Then enlighten me how a <<hugely>> profitable business needs to <<layoff>> large percentages of its workforce???

Its not bad PR when the narrative has already been set. This is a very opportunistic move at cost reduction that would have been scrutinized heavily under regular circumstances.

Because Google employees are really really expensive, and this won't generate a massive amount of bad PR because everyone is doing it. It's the ideal time to sack of employees you don't want.