Google fired approximately 200 employees and relocated some of the jobs overseas – the latest sign of a long-running effort by the Big Tech firm to cut costs and restructure itself.
The job cuts — announced internally on the eve of Google’s blowout first-quarter earnings report — targeted members of Google’s “core” team, which works on the “technical foundation behind the company’s flagship products” as well as the online safety of users and its global IT infrastructure, according to its website.
At least 50 of the roles were based at Google’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. Google is expected to hire replacement workers for the roles in Mexico and India, CNBC reported, citing a review of internal documents.
“Announcements of this sort may leave many of you feeling uncertain or frustrated,” Asim Husain, vice president of Google Developer Ecosystem said in an email to staffers last week announcing the cuts, according to CNBC.
Husain said the company’s restructuring plan was “in service of our broader goals.”
A Google spokesperson confirmed the cuts and said the impacted workers will be able to apply for other open roles at the company.
The company has also provided outplacement services and severance offerings as required.
“As we’ve said, we’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” a Google spokesperson told The Post on Wednesday.
“To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities.”
The spokesperson added. “Through this, we’re simplifying our structures to give employees more opportunity to work on our most innovative and important advances and our biggest company priorities, while reducing bureaucracy and layers.”
Google previously laid off a whopping 12,000 employees in 2023 — and the cuts have continued this year, with CEO Sundar Pichai identifying “durable cost savings” as a key goal as the company pours more resources into developing generative artificial intelligence.
Since January, Google has confirmed several hundred job cuts in its ad sales division and more than 1,000 combined across other units, including the team responsible for hardware products such as Pixel, Nest and Fitbit.
In April, Google CFO Ruth Porat said the company would develop “growth hubs” in India, Mexico and Ireland as part of its restructuring effort.
Google’s stock surged following last week’s earnings report — in which the company announced its first-ever dividend as well as a $70 billion stock buyback.
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