In an effort to cut costs, Google has laid off hundreds of employees from several departments, including the engineering division, the hardware division that makes Fitbit and the Pixel phone, as well as employees working on Google Virtual Assistant, Bloomberg reported.
The cuts continue a trend of tech layoffs after major companies like Google, Meta and Amazon laid off thousands of workers last year. After ten days of this year, more companies announced layoffs.
Earlier on Wednesday, Amazon laid off hundreds of employees from its MGM studios, Prime Video and streaming service Twitch.
This month, Xerox announced plans to cut 15% of its 23,000 employees, while Unity Software, a provider of video game software, announced plans to cut 1,800 positions, or 25% of its workforce.
As of July 2022, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has been pushing the company to narrow its focus and cut costs as the state of the global economy worsened.
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In January 2023, Google made the largest layoff ever by a company, laying off 12,000 employees, or 6% of its workforce. Since the company’s focus on the expanding topic of generative artificial intelligence, management has said it will try to cut costs dramatically.
Google, which had 182,000 employees as of Sept. 30, said Wednesday’s layoffs were part of a series of reorganizations being carried out in the course of normal operations.
The Google Employees Union tweeted: “Our members and colleagues work diligently every day to create great products for our users. It is unacceptable for a company to continue to lay off employees while making billions every quarter. We will continue to fight until our jobs are secured”.
