Alphabet’s life-sciences division Verily laying off 15% of staff: report

Verily, which specialises in health sciences, is one of Google’s sister companies.

This marks the first time in at least six years when Alphabet or its affiliate has announced job cuts.

In an email to staff Wednesday morning, CEO Stephen Gillett said the company would work on fewer products and was prioritising its “data and evidence” operations.

The company will also discontinue Verily Value Suite, a medical software programme, as well as some early-stage products, such as microneedles for drug delivery, Gillett said.

Some employees leading the programmes will be reassigned to other teams, while others will be leaving Verily, he added.

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“We will advance fewer initiatives with greater resources,” Verily said in a blog post.Hanaa Zied, a Verily employee, posted on LinkedIn that she had been laid off. “Unfortunately, I was impacted by the Verily #layoffs earlier today. After sitting with my feelings for a bit, I am very appreciative for so much over the past 6 years with #Verily,” Zeid wrote.

With this, Alphabet joins other tech companies that have slashed their workforces in view of “macroeconomic challenges” and recession fears.

Facebook-parent Meta recently laid off more than 11,000 employees, while Elon Musk fired nearly 3,500 employees globally after he took over Twitter.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy last week announced the e-commerce giant would lay off more than 18,000 employees starting January 18. The layoffs, the company’s second such action in recent months, are likely to affect around 1,000 employees in India.

Alphabet may lay off around 10,000 employees in the coming months. According to a report by The Information, Google’s managers have been asked to analyse and rank “poor performing” employees

Alphabet currently employs around 1,87,000 employees.

Google will use a ranking system and the lowest-ranked employees are expected to be fired. The tech giant had last year announced it would be going slow on hiring in the fourth quarter (October-December).

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai had told his employees in an internal meeting that he “cannot promise layoffs were not coming”, according to a Business Insider report.