By BEN SHIMKUS, US CONSUMER REPORTER
Michael Scott, the hapless regional manager from The Office, embodied both the absurdity and fragility of middle management.
In season five, he briefly quit his job at Dunder Mifflin, a reminder that bosses don’t always stay in power because of their competence.
At Google, the real-life Michael Scotts are facing a tougher fate.
The tech giant told employees last week it has eliminated more than a third of managers overseeing small teams, part of its ongoing push to cut costs and streamline operations.
Executives said the move is designed to make Google leaner and less bureaucratic.
‘Right now, we have 35 percent fewer managers, with fewer direct reports,’ Brian Welle, a top boss at the company, told employees.
‘When we look across our entire leadership population, that’s managers, directors and VPs, we want them to be a smaller percentage of our overall workforce over time.’
Google’s management cuts come as Americans grapple with slowing job growth, a competition with AI, and worries about middle-class jobs.