Alphabet-owned tech giant Google is reportedly laying off several employees as a part of its cost-cutting measures. According to a Reuters report, the affected departments and the number of job cuts are still under wraps.
The laid-off employees will be able to apply for internal positions. Reports, quoting a spokesperson from Google, noted that a small number of impacted roles will be relocated to the company’s other offices in the United States and abroad, while a fraction will be moved to its hubs in India, Chicago, Atlanta, and Dublin.
While the affected teams remain unclear, a report by Business Insider pointed out that several teams in the company’s finance and real estate units took the hit. The affected teams in finance include Google’s Treasury, Business Services, and Revenue Cash Operations teams, the report noted; adding that the changes were “pretty large-scale”.
“To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities,” the spokesperson said.
In January, Google laid off around 1,000 workers in several divisions and the company’s chief executive officer Sundar Pichai hinted that additional layoffs are looming. These cutbacks, at the time, impacted a wide range of departments, including hardware, ad sales, trust and safety, retail, maps, policy core engineering, and YouTube. The layoffs were made with the intention of “removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity in some areas,” Pichai said in an internal memo.
Meanwhile, the news resonates with the broader layoff trend in the tech industry. Giants like Amazon, Meta, Discord, etc. have announced workforce reductions, citing economic slowdowns and the need to adapt to changing market conditions. Earlier this month, Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing giant, reportedly announced the elimination of several hundred positions across sales, marketing, and technology departments. This move follows a string of recent job cuts by its parent company, Amazon.com.
