’No more free massage, fitness centers’, Google cuts down employee perks after firing 12,000 staff

Google Inc, which is among the world's top-5 companies by value, is gradually cutting back employee benefits as per reports by international media.

Google employees have revealed how the tech giant has discontinued several benefits which they used to enjoy a few years ago.

According to a report by Business Insider, Google is cutting back its cafe opening hours. The company has also extended the duration of the replacement of devices, including laptops.

An engineer, who has worked at Google for around 15 years told Business Insider that, "slowly the perks have been going away. They were being stripped down gradually".

Highlighting some of the benefits that have been cut temporarily are--free massage, and the closure of campus shuttle buses and fitness centers.

Google was a trailblazer in high-quality corporate catering but has now pared back food options in recent years.

A laid-off employee from Google said, "Food was the greatest perk at Google. He said that Google's food budgets were "scaled back" towards the end of the 2010s. Another laid-off Google Cloud sales engineer said that food options Google offered at its Cambridge, Boston office were "significantly reduced from their pre-pandemic heights," with little variation between weeks.

However, some employees disagreed and added that food at their offices was still high quality.

Apart from food, Google has curbed spending on employee travel, restricting it to "business critical" trips only.

As per the statements by other laid-off employees, Google also cut spending on merchandise. A former technical program manager at Google said, " I got a really cheap jacket and backpack" when she joined Google in 2022.

One of the biggest changes Google has made over the years was cutting back on holiday gifts and parties. Some staff said that Google offered them phones from the company.

Over time, Google started to replace the gadgets and cash bonuses with $400 donations to a charity of their choice, said Google staff.

The report of Google's cost-cutting has come after the company announced the mass layoff of around 12,000 workers, accounting for 6% of its workforce, and has since been tweaking other operations in a bid to save cash.