
Google rescinds offers to thousands of contract workers - ericzawo
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/technology/google-rescinds-job-offers-to-contract-workers.html
======
dougmwne
As much as it sucks for the 2000 people who won't have their offers honored
and especially who many have left other roles for the chance to work at
Google, this is the devil's bargin of contract work. You are there
specifically so the company can adjust labor resources in real time and with
minimal consequences or press. If you don't want to be treated as extra-
disposable and second class then don't take contacts, because they are higher
risk than FTE.

Of course you will also be cutting yourself off from opportunities to quickly
gain new experiences, and contracts can frequently lead to FTE offers if your
agency structures their contract in your favor.

~~~
dudul
Is there a significant difference between terminating a full time, "at will"
employee and a contractor? Other than a few weeks of severance I can't think
of any.

~~~
momokoko
You can’t sue for discrimination or wrongful termination.

You are not protected by the WARN act.

There are more but that’s just off the top of my head.

If there wasn’t a difference, companies wouldn’t do it.

Remember, they have to pay these people more money than they would for a
direct hire because the staffing agency takes a cut of their weekly pay.

~~~
gnopgnip
Contractors for Google are still employees working for a contracting company.
They could sue if they were discriminated against for membership in a
protected class.

~~~
mamon
Usually this is not true: they are not employees at all, contracting company
also hires them as subcontractors, each of them running their own sole
propertiorship (at least that's how it works in my country).

But even if they were employees, they are not really getting fired from the
contracting company - it can still try and find them another gig, for a
different client. So you can say they are not getting fired at all, just
suddenly have no work to do (but still have a valid employment contract).

Of course if contracting agency can't find them another position in reasonably
short time they will fire them as well, but that's not on Google anymore, so
Google can't be sued for that.

~~~
pyuser583
I’ve worked as a contractor. Was definitely an employee of the contractor
company.

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otterley
"Some of the would-be contractors left stable, full-time jobs once they
received an employment offer at Google and are now searching for work in a
difficult labor market."

This is a good example of why it's a good idea for agencies and independents
to write penalty clauses into contracts, so that if the hiring company
rescinds the agreement, they must compensate the contractor for lost
opportunity costs.

(On a side note, "employment offer at Google" is a bit misleading; the
employer is typically an agency, not Google.)

~~~
momokoko
Correct. Many of these people will not qualify for unemployment benefits
because they willfully quit their other job and because of the US system are
at serious risk of destitution and homelessness unless they have friends or
family that will support them during this time.

~~~
gnopgnip
Quitting to start a new job does not prevent you from receiving unemployment.
There is no blanket prohibition on receiving unemployment if you quit. You
qualify for unemployment if you lost your job through no fault of your own, or
you quit for good cause

~~~
jeffbee
I don't know what jurisdiction you are specifically discussing, but in
California you cannot collect unemployment if you simply left your job. You
must show "good cause" for leaving, where "good cause" includes things like
violence and physical danger, but not "I thought I could get paid more across
town".

~~~
gnopgnip
In CA specifically if you accept a better job and quit, then later this other
job never materializes that is good cause and you would qualify for
unemployment.

Per
[https://www.edd.ca.gov/uibdg/Voluntary_Quit_VQ_5.htm](https://www.edd.ca.gov/uibdg/Voluntary_Quit_VQ_5.htm)
on whether a voluntary quit qualifies for unemployment

>[T]he quitting must be for such a cause as would reasonably motivate in a
similar situation the average able-bodied and qualified worker to give up his
or her employment with its certain wage rewards in order to enter the ranks of
the . . . unemployed.

------
tenpies
I am honestly amazed that people do not seem to realize that all the "tech"
companies that are advertising vendors are in _deep_ trouble right now.

The numbers are not good and some seriously hard decisions are going to be
coming up.

~~~
dpflan
Do you have some sources/data to reference? I have read articles discussing
this superficially, e.g. companies reducing ad and marketing expenditure,
therefore affecting ad serving platforms.

~~~
MattGaiser
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/technology/coronavirus-
go...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/technology/coronavirus-google-
facebook-advertising.html)

An NYT article about it.

Although I am not sure I agree with the deep trouble assessment. At least for
the first quarter, the analysts were too fearful.

[https://www.thedrum.com/news/2020/04/29/alphabet-posts-
sudde...](https://www.thedrum.com/news/2020/04/29/alphabet-posts-sudden-and-
significant-slow-down-google-ad-revenue-due-covid-19)

~~~
bhouston
There is a counter argument that online ads is the way to drive traffic to
online stores that are currently replacing brick and mortar outlets during
quarantine.

------
jeffbee
The person quoted in the article was hired as a recruiter. Last time there was
a recession, Google axed all its recruiters. If they are unloading their
recruiter organization, that says a lot about their full-time hiring rate
right now.

~~~
cowmoo728
Sundar himself has commented on this publicly.

"We believe now is the time to significantly slow down the pace of hiring,
while maintaining momentum in a small number of strategic areas where users
and businesses rely on Google for ongoing support, and where our growth is
critical to their success."

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/15/21222942/google-
slowing-d...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/15/21222942/google-slowing-down-
hiring-through-2020-covid-19-pandemic)

------
MattGaiser
Isn’t Google one of the last companies to let its contractors go at this
point?

Anecdotally I know of only one company that did not let them go at the start
of this crisis to preserve cash.

------
jeffbee
It’s really a shame that with a company of this size and importance we don’t
enjoy a newsletter like “Shannon Knows DEC”. I’d love to get an inside
perspective about current events at google from someone with deep contacts and
a real understanding of the business.

~~~
alkibiades
i can tell you from experience it’s often misrepresented as well. the
leadership will say something in an internal announcement and when it gets
leaked it’s like a game of telephone. where the news is slightly different
than what was actually said

------
mc32
It sucks for them. But we’re in a slump to sag the least. It’d be nice for
them to take on those workers as obligation but obviously they’re not obliged
to do that, so they’re not because once the economy comes back people will go
back to them due to cachet .

~~~
s3r3nity
>But we're in a slump to say the least.

I don't know what this "we" is to which you refer, as Google's Q1 2020 revenue
outpaced Wall Street estimates by 3-4%, and shares have increased 6% since
their last earnings call, outperforming the S&P 500.

I agree with your point that Google, nor any company, is obliged to take on
workers if that's their business decision, but let's not pretend that Google
is getting hit _that_ hard by the recession.

~~~
dougmwne
Q1 only covers through the end of March which would have only seen a few weeks
of social distancing in some regions. Budgets take time to slash, and ripples
take time to spread. The lean times could last for years and the common advice
for surviving recessions is to cut as deeply and quickly as you can to
preserve cash. That's why many companies are doing layoffs before they
actually see a quarterly revenue performance hit. Organizations take time to
move so decision makers need to lead the target.

------
subsubzero
non-paywall link:
[https://beta.trimread.com/articles/18758](https://beta.trimread.com/articles/18758)

------
devchix
Do Google contractors make more than Google employees? If yes, the premium is
the priced-in risk. I sincerely don't know, but US government contractors make
more than the GSA schedule counterpart.

~~~
bencorman
We're misusing the term contractor in this thread. There are about 130,000
TVCs at Google (Temps, Vendors, and Contractors) according to the article.

The overwhelming majority of those are vendors, who provide security, staff
cafeterias, call centers, etc. A few thousand are temps, who do the same work
as an FTE but on a fixed-term basis with a cap at 2 years. Temps are employees
of a staffing agency like Adecco which rents them out to Google for a rate
about 2-3x the hourly pay of the temp.

The number of actual contractors, who are self-employed and have contracts
directly with Google, is just a few hundred. They likely do make more than
many FTEs, at least lower-level ones.

