Alphabet is preparing to lay off 12,000 employees, or about 6% of total wages.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is about to lay off about 12,000 employees, about 6% of its global payroll. She informed her employees about this in a general email. CEO Sundar Pichai explains that he is “deeply sorry”for the employees who will have to leave the company and that this is “a difficult decision for the future.”These layoffs will affect the entire world and all segments of the entire multinational corporation. Sundar Pichai also takes “full responsibility for the decisions that have brought [the giant] so far.”
Alphabet to lay off 12,000 workers
Alphabet, like many other tech giants, fell into the trap of hiring during a period of “fantastic growth”, but Sundar Pichai explained that he did so “in an economic reality very different from what [them] has today.”In recent weeks Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and many others have had more or less significant waves of layoffs due to the global economic situation.
Google is the latter, thanks in part to its very powerful advertising and cloud subsidiaries. However, last quarter the company reported a 27% year-over-year profit loss and Sundar Pichai said Alphabet now needs to cut costs and hiring. At the same time, activists and analysts are calling for even more aggressive layoffs, recalling that, according to Bloomberg, the payroll at Mountain View has increased by 20% since 2017.
i.e. approximately 6% of his global salary
Sundar Pichai also clarified that the relevant employees will be paid for at least 60 days. Alphabet will also offer a severance pay of up to 16 weeks of pay with an additional 2 weeks per year of Google work experience and “accelerate at least 16 weeks of GSU investment.”The firm will also pay out the remaining bonuses and vacations in 2022, offering 6 months of health insurance, job search services, and “immigration support for concerned individuals.”
In the past two weeks alone, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta have laid off 10,000, 18,000 and 11,000 employees, respectively. Google has also slowed down some spending lately, like shutting down its video game streaming service Stadia, canceling next-generation Pixelbook laptops, and more. The American giant will now focus more on artificial intelligence, saying it is “ready to bring a completely innovative experience to users, developers and businesses.”