Google’s headquarters is seen on September 26, 2022 in Mountain View, California, United States. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Google has cut more than 1,800 jobs in its home state of California in the largest round of layoffs in company history.
On Friday, Alphabet-owned Google said it would cut 12,000 employees, about 6% of its full-time employees. According to filings released by the state and viewed by CNBC, 1,845 jobs, or 15% of the cuts, were in California.
Most of the downsizing in the state occurred in and around the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. In Mountain View, where Google is based, 1,436 jobs were cut, while 119 were eliminated in San Bruno, home of YouTube. Palo Alto saw 53 cuts.
“Worker separations at the facilities resulting from this measure are expected to begin on March 31, 2023,” the filing, which was dated January 20, said.
A Google spokesman told CNBC that the March deadline was due to a notice period required in California. WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) requires employers to provide affected workers and state and local officials with at least 60 days’ written notice of “any plant closure or collective layoff”.
Google’s original announcement said the company would pay US employees “throughout the reporting period (minimum 60 days)”.
More than a quarter of the affected Bay Area positions had “director” or “senior” in the titles. The cuts also included 27 in-house massage therapists, including 24 in Mountain View and three in the Southern California markets of Los Angeles and Irvine.
A total of 177 cuts took place in LA, mostly from the company’s Playa Vista campus. There were 60 cuts in Irvine.
Alphabet anticipates slowing growth and risks of recession as the tech market braces for the end of an extended bull market. At a company-wide meeting Monday, CEO Sundar Pichai addressed the layoffs and answered questions from employees who expressed concerns about the future.
“I understand your concern about what’s next for your work,” Pichai said at the meeting. “Also very saddened by the loss of some really good colleagues across the company.”
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