According to a report, Google executives frightened their employees at a spooky meeting this week – wearing festive Halloween costumes as they answered questions about further cost cuts and layoffs.

During Wednesday’s all-hands meeting, Google’s chief scientist Jeff Dean wore a starfish costume. CFO Anat Ashkenazi wore a sports jersey of former Indiana Pacers star Reggie Miller.

CEO Sundar Pichai wore a T-shirt that read “ERROR 404 COSTUME NOT FOUND” and an image of a pixelated dinosaur.

During the meeting with employees, a Google spokesperson told The Post that executives answered about 20 questions on various topics, including one or two questions about cost effectiveness.

A day earlier, Google parent Alphabet reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue, but in a call with investors, recently hired Ashkenazi said she wanted to “push cost savings a little further.”

Asked whether there could be layoffs in the future, Pichai said: “When we make company-wide decisions, we will definitely let you know.”

“I told Anat yesterday that the earnings conference call was a breeze compared to the meeting the next day,” Pichai joked during the staff meeting.

According to internal correspondence seen by CNBC, employees are concerned that the company is preparing to cut more jobs after the end of the year.

“What exactly was meant by the comments about further efficiencies in staffing levels?” an employee asked during the meeting, referring to Ashkenazi’s comments during the call.

Ashkenazi did not share details but said the employees were “one of the most important assets we have.”

She said the company is investing in its employees and even hired 1,000 new graduates in the third quarter.

Pichai said that in addition to layoffs, there are opportunities to increase efficiency and restructure the company.

“If you have to do something new and you need 10 people to do it, if you find a way to do it with eight people by making intelligent compromises somewhere and aligning teams better, then that is also an example of increasing efficiency in headcount. “,” Pichai said.

Google has invested heavily in its artificial intelligence infrastructure to compete with other tech giants and AI startups like OpenAI, Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI. The company has laid off employees and downsized its marketing, cloud and security teams to cut costs.

“This is reality,” said Brian Ong, vice president of Google Recruiting, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by CNBC. “We’re hiring less than we were a few years ago.”

Ong said there are fewer positions open and geographic staffing has changed, “so you may see fewer vacancies where you are.”

Although the company is investing in its artificial intelligence units, Pichai said the push won’t last forever.

“We are in an extraordinary period of increasing investment,” said Pichai. “When these technological changes happen, you invest disproportionately in the early stages and then the curve gets better and that is the transition as an industry that we are working on.”

However, he left the door open for further job cuts because not all decisions would be made by the company’s executives.

“It’s not like all of these decisions are made centrally at the corporate level,” Pichai said. “So at our company level, there could be moments where small groups of people are affected.”

During Tuesday’s earnings call, Ashkenazi said internal use of artificial intelligence could help the company reduce expenses.

Google has stated that 25% of its new code is generated by AI.

That 25% figure refers to low-level tasks, but the company is working to “expand into more complex areas,” said Brian Saluzzo, head of “core” developers.

The “Core” teams develop the technology behind Google’s products. In May, Google laid off more than 200 employees from its core engineering teams and rehired some of those positions in India and Mexico.