Google Slashes Marketing Budget & Halts Hiring as COVID-19 Hits

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In a recent report by CNBC, news that Google plans to slash its marketing budget in half for H2 2020 were revealed, this comes as COVID-19 wreaks havoc on the economy and shows that not even Google is immune to the effects. Google is also halting most hiring of full-time and contract employees particularly in Marketing long with reducing employee skills training as part of the company "recalibrating".

This news comes after Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced that Google would be scaling back its investments for the remainder of the year. At the time Sundar only said it would recalibrate "non-business essential marketing" and "significantly slow down" hiring. Action this drastic seemed unlikely at the time, Alphabet shares dropped nearly 2% after hours following the news.



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This is the first time I observed Google cutting cost to such an extent. With most shops closed globally, the ads business must have taken a significant pounding. While ads is not the only business for Google, it is one of main cash cow for them if I am not mistaken.