Google layoffs: Alphabet to sack 12,000 employees or 6% of total workforce

The layoffs will affect jobs globally and across the entire company, chief executive officer Sundar Pichai told employees in an email on Friday, writing that he takes “full responsibility for the decisions that led us here”.

The layoffs are global and impact US staff immediately, Google said.

Pichai said in the note, “I am confident about the huge opportunity in front of us thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI.”

Pichai said the tech giant will “support employees as they look for their next opportunity.”

In the US, he said that the company will pay employees during the full notification period (minimum 60 days).

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Alphabet has already emailed affected employees, the memo said, while the process will take longer in other countries due to local employment laws and practices.We reported in November, citing media reports, that the tech giant has asked managers to identify the poorest-performing 6% of employees.

Google employed around 1.56 lakh people at the end of 2021. A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that the median salary at the company was $2,95,884.

Google has joined a growing list of tech companies that have cut their workforces in recent months, including Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Twitter.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would cut 13% of its workforce, or about 11,000 people.

Since Elon Musk’s takeover, Twitter has cut more than 50% of its 7,500-strong workforce. Ecommerce giant Amazon is also planning to fire 18,000 employees.

Tech giant Microsoft, on the other hand, said it plans to slash close to 10,000 jobs or nearly 5% of its workforce by the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2023 in an attempt to save $1 billion in costs.

Earlier in the day, Google announced that it is deferring a portion of its employees’ year-end bonuses as part of a transition to a new performance management system.

“The company will pay 80% advance bonus to eligible employees initially and the remainder in later months,” a spokesperson told Reuters, adding that the move was communicated to staff last year.