Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. is cutting 12,000 jobs worldwide in the latest round of layoffs to hit the tech sector.
CEO Sundar Pichai announced the cuts in a memo to Google employees that was later shared online at a company. blog post.
“This will mean saying goodbye to some incredibly talented people that we worked hard to hire and loved working with,” Pichai said. “I’m very sorry about that. The fact that these changes will affect the lives of Google employees weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.”
The cuts represent more than 6% of the company’s workforce, according to Reuters. It was not immediately clear which equipment would be affected, but workers in the United States and around the world are expected to be affected, according to Pichai’s note.
The technology sector has racked up massive job losses of late amid a slowing global economy. Google’s announcement comes just 48 hours after Microsoft announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs, and coincides with Amazon’s previously announced first round of layoffs that will ultimately affect a total of 18,000 workers.
Other tech companies that have announced layoffs in recent months include Facebook parent company Meta, Salesforce, Twitter and Snap. In total, employers in the technology industry have cut nearly 195,000 jobs in the past year. according to the Wall Street Journalwho quoted a website who has been following the job cuts.
The job cuts mark the abrupt end of a period of rapid hiring in the tech sector that coincided with the economic boom amid the pandemic. But that rapid growth also brought with it a rise in inflation, a phenomenon that prompted the Federal Reserve to begin aggressively raising interest rates. The higher rates have combined with a myriad of other factors globally, including the war in Ukraine and China’s Covid-19 lockdowns, to slow down the global economy.
In his memo announcing the layoffs, Pichai cited changing “economic realities.”
“Over the past two years we have seen periods of spectacular growth,” heh said. “To match and fuel that growth, we contracted for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”
While he said the company was “destined to go through difficult economic cycles,” he said he felt “confident in the great opportunity that lies ahead of us because of the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our first investments”. in AI”.
Pichai said workers in the US would be paid for the full notice period, a minimum of 60 days.
Workers will also be offered severance packages starting at 16 weeks of salary, plus two weeks for each additional year at Google, and 2022 bonuses and remaining vacation time are also expected to be paid, he said. He added that the workers will also be offered six months of medical care, job placement services and immigration support if needed.
“Outside the US, we will support employees in accordance with local practices,” he said.
Pichai said a workers’ town hall was being organized for Monday. “Until then, take good care of yourselves as you absorb this difficult news,” he wrote.