January 25, 2023Updated: January 25, 2023 3:33 pm
The Google logo is emblazoned on a carpet in the lobby of Google France in Paris. Google said it was laying off 12,000 employees, becoming the latest tech company to cut staff after rapid expansion slowed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Michel Euler, STF/Associated Press
Google’s layoff of 12,000 workers will affect at least 1,845 workers in California, including 1,608 in the Bay Area, according to state records.
The cuts extend to offices at the company’s Mountain View headquarters, where most of the cuts in the state took place, affecting 1,436 employees; San Bruno, home of YouTube’s headquarters; and Palo Alto. Los Angeles and Irvine also saw cuts. No jobs were affected in San Francisco, where the search giant has numerous offices near the Embarcadero.
The cuts account for 15% of the company’s global layoffs and go into effect March 31.
A variety of professions were affected, from marketing managers to user experience designers to software developers and even 27 massage therapists.
The mass layoffs, along with others at tech giants like Amazon and Meta, could send Santa Clara County’s unemployment rate skyrocketing, which was just 2% late last year, and hurt the Bay Area’s economy. But the more than two-month gap until the layoffs take effect means they won’t be reflected in government data until later this year.
Alphabet had a total of about 187,000 employees as of September 2022, up from 150,000 a year earlier.
Roland Li is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @rolandlisf
Roland Li covers commercial real estate for the business desk, with a focus on the office and retail sectors in the Bay Area.
He was previously a reporter for the San Francisco Business Times, where he received an award from the California News Publishers Association and three awards from the National Association of Real Estate Editors.
He is the author of Good Luck Have Fun: The Rise of eSports, a 2016 book about the history of the competitive video game industry. Before moving to the Bay Area in 2015, he studied and worked in New York. He has done freelance work for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and other local publications. His hobbies include swimming and city photography.