Topline
Google laid off several hundred employees across multiple divisions Wednesday—including hardware and engineering—joining tech companies like Amazon and Unity in announcing sizable job cuts at the start of the year.
File Photo: Google laid of a few hundred staffers each from three divisions on Wednesday.
Key Facts
The layoffs, first reported by the New York Times and Semafor late Wednesday, have since been confirmed by Google.
The company confirmed with the Verge that a few hundred people were laid off from each of the three divisions.
The job cuts include employees from Google’s core engineering team, the hardware division that makes Pixel and Fitbit devices and the team working on Google Assistant—the company’s competitor to Apple’s Siri and Amazon Alexa—as part of a restructuring that plans to integrate newer artificial intelligence technology into the service, the company told Semafor..
According to the New York Times, “several hundred” workers from the core engineering team were sent notices about being laid off and lost access to corporate systems on Wednesday night.
Crucial Quote
In an emailed statement, a Google spokesperson told that the layoffs were part of organizational changes the company was making “to become more efficient and work better, and to align their resources to their biggest product priorities.” The statement added that the company will “support any impacted employees as they look for new roles here at Google and beyond.”
Big Number
12,000. The approximate number of employees Google laid off at the start of 2023—around six percent of the company’s total workforce at the time. Last year’s layoffs came amid fears of a global economic downturn after a major hiring boom during the Covid-19 pandemic. In an internal meeting in December, the company’s CEO Sundar Pichai admitted that the layoffs could have been handled better and said: “At Google, we really haven’t had a moment quite like that in 25 years.”
Key Background
Earlier on Wednesday, Amazon issued an internal memo announcing plans to cut “several hundred” jobs at its Prime Video and MGM Studios divisions. A day earlier, the Amazon-owned game streaming site Twitch announced it was laying off 35% of its staff, or about 500 workers, amid a failure to reach profitability. On Monday, Unity which makes software to help design video games announced a 25% cut in workforce, laying off 1,800 staffers.
Further Reading
Google Cuts Hundreds of Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions (New York Times)
Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant (Semafor)
Google reorganizing Pixel hardware: Fitbit’s James Park leaving, layoffs hit AR team (9to5Google)
