Google’s parent company Alphabet announced about 12,000 job cuts globally on Friday, becoming the latest US tech giant to enact large-scale restructuring. “We’ve decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees, adding that the cuts were in response to a changing “economic reality”.
The move comes a day after Microsoft said it would reduce staff numbers by 10,000 in the coming months, following similar layoffs by Facebook owner Meta, Amazon, and Twitter as the previously unassailable tech sector face a major economic downturn.
“We’ve undertaken a rigorous review across product areas and functions to ensure that our people and roles are aligned with our highest priorities as a company,” Pichai wrote.
“The roles we’re eliminating reflect the outcome of that review. “The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.”
Mass Job layoffs: From the Past year
- Amazon: The e-commerce company said it must cut about 18,000 positions. That’s just a fraction of its 1.5 million-strong global workforce.
- Salesforce: The company lays off 10% of its workforce, about 8,000 employees.
- Coinbase: The cryptocurrency trading platform cuts approximately 20% of its workforce, or about 950 jobs, in a second round of layoffs in less than a year.
- Microsoft: The software company said it will cut about 10,000 jobs, almost 5% of its workforce.
- Google: The search engine giant becomes the most recent in the industry to say it must adjust, saying 12,000 workers, or about 6% of its workforce, would be let go.
- Twitter: About half of the social media platform’s staff of 7,500 was let go after it was acquired by the billionaire CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk.
- Lyft: The ride-hailing service said it was cutting 13% of its workforce, almost 700 employees.
- Meta: The parent company of Facebook laid off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce.
- Snap: The parent company of social media platform Snapchat said that it was letting go of 20% of its staff. Snap’s staff has grown to more than 5,600 employees in recent years and the company said at the time that even after laying off more than 1,000 people, its staff would be larger than it was a year earlier.
- Robinhood: The company, whose app helped bring a new generation of investors to the market, announced that it would reduce headcount by about 23%, or approximately 780 people. An earlier round of layoffs last year cut 9% of its workforce.
