Silicon Valley companies cut back on employee perks

Yahoo Finance’s Daniel Howley joins the Live show to discuss how Silicon Valley is cutting back on employee perks as part of cost-cutting plans.

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RACHELLE AKUFFO: All right, well, tech firms that are always looking for ways to reduce costs are scaling back on perks. Here with the details is Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley. Hey, Dan.

DAN HOWLEY: That's right, Rachelle. We're seeing a cutback in some of those really interesting perks that tech companies are offering to their employees. There was a report earlier this week from CNBC pointing out that Google is cutting back on everything from the ability for-- excuse me, employees to re-up their devices. We're talking they're going from high end Apple products and laptops down to Chromebooks if they're not in engineering, to limiting the amount of staplers and tape rolls that are available at printer stations, even cutting back the hours of on-campus cafes.

This is all in response to a desire to cut back on costs, but also the kind of in-office, out-office work schedules that people have. They have yoga classes. They're cutting back on certain days. They said they had cafes that had baked too many things and needed to get rid of them on Mondays and Fridays. So we're seeing this cut back. And it's not just at Alphabet, by the way. Meta has cut back on certain things. I know anecdotally, I've spoken to some people who say you can definitely notice a difference in food quality, things along those lines. And other companies are making cuts as well.

Just want to point out with Meta as well, they also are cutting down on the amount of bonuses they're offering. And the kind of review process they're doing with people is being sped up. Not as many people getting illustrious kind of marks for their yearly reviews. But I do want to just point out what these perks are for. Sure, they're very interesting, but they're really a way to lure employees in. This is usually comes at a time when they're in high demand, so they have to make a way to basically say, look, you'll be better off here.

It also makes sure that those people stay on campus. So if you have laundry on campus with which Facebook used to offer-- they did away with that-- you don't have to be home to do your laundry. You can just drop it off and have someone do it. There's been dentists, barbers. Anything you can think of, they've had on these campuses. But now, as they're seeing this kind of reduction in workforce, they don't necessarily need to pull people in. And so what they're doing is they're cutting back on that.

It doesn't mean that all perks are going away, obviously. Also it's kind of silly to feel bad when people are getting little free lunches. But it does kind of make sense, though, for them to pull back at this point. Eventually, experts that I spoke to said, we'll start to see those perks kind of come back and recirculate. It's all cyclical, based on how many employees that these companies need and what they're fighting for.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: So certainly sort of adjusting to conditions. But I mean, I don't know-- taking away the staplers, that's a little bit stingy, but I guess you have to do what you have to do in this environment. Dan Howley there. Thank you for that update.