In another blow to the tech industry, Sundar Pichai-led Google has reportedly laid of at least 200 employees from its “Core” teams, including those from its engineering talent and key teams. According to a CNBC report on May 1, which viewed some internal documents of the company, the American multinational tech giant will hire many corresponding roles in India and Mexico as a part of this reorganization.
The report noted that “Core” units include those from information technology, Python developer team, technical infrastructure, security foundation, app platforms, core developers, and several other engineering roles. Additionally, out of latest cuts, at least 50 jobs were trimmed in engineering unit at the company’s offices in Sunnyvale, California. The affected employees will be able to apply for open roles within the company and to access outplacement services, Google spokesperson told CNBC.
The layoffs were announced in an email last week by Asim Husain, vice president of Google Developer Ecosystem. Husain told employees that this is the “biggest planned” job cut for this team this year. In his message to developers, he that the changes “are in service of our broader goals” as a company. Google’s security engineering vice president Pankaj Rohatgi said in another email that the role eliminations are a result of Google’s plans of expanding work to other locations for optimizing its business goals.
Meanwhile, the news comes just ahead of the tech major’s annual developer conference, Google I/O, scheduled on May 14. Notably, these are not the first layoffs by the company. Google parent Alphabet announced to cut 12,000 jobs, or around 6% of its workforce, in January last year to lower its costs. Since then, several of its teams have announced downsizing.
Just recently in April, several teams in the company’s finance and real estate units took the hit. Prior to this, 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.
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.
