The Google logo at a company store in New York ANDREW KELLY (Portal)
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, will cut about 12,000 jobs worldwide, a figure nearly 6% of its workforce, to counteract the slowdown in economic conditions, the company’s and its parent company’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, reported this Friday. in a message to employees. It’s the largest job cut in its history, bringing the number of layoffs announced by big tech firms Big Tech to 51,000 last year.
The Mountain View (US) giant joins the wave of massive layoffs in the US tech sector, fueled by deteriorating economic conditions, rising costs and sharp staff increases during the pandemic, as demand for its services has skyrocketed.
Microsoft this week announced about 10,000 job cuts, and Amazon increased its layoffs to about 18,000 workers earlier this year. Last year, Meta announced job cuts of 11,000 people. Of the Big Five, only Apple has so far escaped massive downsizing, though it has slowed hiring and laid off some employees.
In addition to the so-called Big Techs, many other technology companies, including Salesforce, Twitter and Netflix, have also made layoffs. According to website Layoffs.fyi, which monitors layoffs in the tech sector, around 39,000 layoffs have already been announced in the first 20 days of this year, on top of the 155,000 in 2022. And that’s despite the fact that the US economy has been doing so at 3.5 % the lowest unemployment rate in the last 50 years.
“We have decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 jobs,” Pichai said in a message posted at Google’s Mountain View, California, headquarters this morning after noon in mainland Spain. Pichai said the company has already emailed affected employees in the United States, while in other countries “this process will take longer due to local laws and practices.”
The executive explained that the multinational has operated a hiring policy over the past two years “to offset and feed the spectacular growth of that period.” “We’re hiring for a different economic reality than today,” he admitted.
In the last five years, Alphabet has more than doubled its workforce, from 88,110 employees that ended 2017 to 186,779 as of Sept. 30, the latest figure officially released by the company, which may have increased in the last quarter . . Since 2020 alone, the company has hired more than 50,000 people. It’s another common factor for all big tech companies, who have started hiring in the middle of a pandemic, as lockdowns and changing consumer habits increased demand for their products and services, and now find their workforces to be stretched.
Google’s earnings have fallen throughout 2022, but it continues to rake in millions of dollars in profits. It billed $206,788 million in the first nine months of the year, up 13% from the same period in 2021, but its benefits fell 16% to $46,348 million through September, according to its balance sheet. The earnings decline has accelerated and was 27% just looking at the third quarter. The company will present its annual results on February 2nd.
The cut positions at Alphabet reflect the outcome of a rigorous review conducted across divisions and functions to ensure they align with the company’s top priorities, spanning the group’s various product areas, functions, tiers and regions, Pichai said .
The company will provide its U.S. employees with severance pay of at least 16 weeks’ salary plus two weeks for each year of service at Google, accelerate the allocation of stock and options considered compensation by at least 16 weeks, and pay laid-off employees in bonuses in 2022 and Holiday Without Pleasure provides six months of health insurance, job-hunting, and assistance in processing the immigration status of foreign workers in the country. Outside the United States, “local practices” are being followed, Pichai adds.
Alphabet’s chief executive assures that cuts in some areas will allow the company to bet on others, including artificial intelligence, which the group bet on early on. “With artificial intelligence in all of our products, there’s a huge opportunity ahead of us, and we’re ready to take it boldly and responsibly,” he says.
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