The cuts affected employees in divisions including those working on Google’s Assistant program, hardware and internal software tools
IndiGlobal Bureau
It was a bad Wednesday for employees at Google. The company laid off hundreds of employees in several areas of the business. The search giant is now reducing the employee strength after it had gone opn a hiring spree during the pandemic. The cuts affected employees in divisions including those working on Google’s Assistant program, hardware and internal software tools, the company said. The exact size and scope of the layoffs couldn’t immediately be determined. A Google spokesman said the company was “responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead.” The company said it is helping those affected to look for other roles internally.
The co-founders of Fitbit, James Park and Eric Friedman, will also be leaving the company as part of the reorganization , Google said. Google parent Alphabet, led by CEO Sundar Pichai, has been trying to marshal resources toward developments in artificial intelligence while also cutting back on spending. Amazon also laid off hundreds of employees across its film and television studio and Twitch streaming platform on Wednesday in an effort to rein in costs.
Alphabet cut 12,000 jobs, or about 6% of staff, in it’s largest-ever layoffs almost a year ago. The company later made smaller cuts affecting hundreds of recruiters and dozens of other employees in areas ranging from the self-driving car business Waymo to the Google News product. The company had 182,381 employees at the end of September, according to regulatory filings. It employed as many as 190,711 workers before the layoffs last year, in addition to tens of thousands of contractors. “We’re simplifying management layers and flattening our teams so we can speed up decision-making and allow greater access to information across our teams,” a Google executive wrote in an email announcing the cuts to employees working on internal software tools.