Google is reportedly planning to lay off workers in some locations, including the United States, immediately. It’s been said that this amounts to up to 6% of the whole corporation.
It has been speculated that layoffs would occur across a number of technical and product teams at Google, as well as in the company’s recruiting and corporate divisions. According to the rumored contents of the letter, layoffs will begin with the company’s U.S. personnel immediately and will eventually spread throughout the world. This might be slowed significantly by the fact that workers everywhere must comply with local employment rules.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, sent an internal message in which he emphasized the company’s AI initiatives and the benefits of Google’s products and services. Pichai also reassured staff that Google had made efforts to rationalize where possible in preparation for future challenges. According to the first report, all affected workers have been notified by email or telephone. According to the Wall Street Journal, Alphabet has also stated that any U.S.-based workers impacted by layoffs would be given two months’ notice, plus 16 weeks of severance pay, plus an extra two weeks for every year the individual was employed.
The question that remains is where exactly Google will make its cuts. These estimates may include the people who worked on the cloud-based gaming provider Stadia before it was shut down recently. Some of the service’s most visible architects, including Phil Harrison, are still listed as employees of the IT behemoth. This is likely to change over the next several months, as Google is widely speculated to announce widespread layoffs across departments.
According to the WSJ, a Google representative has confirmed that the company would be cutting costs across the board, including at other Alphabet companies.
Revenue growth for Google in Q3 2022 was 6%, according to the company’s earnings release, which was below the company’s early projections. Profits for Q3 2022 dropped over 30% year-over-year, to $17.35 billion, marking the company’s worst growth quarter since Q3 2013.
