Jan 20 (Reuters) - Google's parent Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) is eliminating about 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, the company said Friday, in the latest cuts to shake the technology sector.
Sundar Pichai, Alphabet's CEO, said in a staff memo shared with Reuters that the company had rapidly expanded headcount in recent years "for a different economic reality than the one we face today."
"I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here," he said.
The cuts come days after rival Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) said it would lay off 10,000 workers.
Alphabet's job losses affect teams across the company including recruiting and some corporate functions, as well as some engineering and products teams.
The layoffs are global and impact U.S. staff immediately.
Alphabet has already emailed affected employees, the memo said, while the process will take longer in other countries due to local employment laws and practices.
The news comes during a period of economic uncertainty as well as technological promise, in which Google and Microsoft have been investing in a burgeoning area of software known as generative artificial intelligence.
"I am confident about the huge opportunity in front of us thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI," Pichai said in the note.
Reuters was first to report the news.
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I'm curious about all these layoffs, are they actually firing coders or is it all like useless management people and women who drink lattes and go to yoga all day?
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Probably coders and useless ancillary functions (HR), but it's no big deal, they all just overhired last year. All these tech giants hired tens of thousands (no joke) of people each since 2020, it's just a return to normalcy.
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Nobody's been safe from the big ones. The trend seems to be cut non-tech > people in underperforming/non-critical business areas > new hires > a smattering of unlucky randos + PIP out poor performers without counting them in the official layoff numbers
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Probably some of both. I was working for a company (non-tech) with about 1000 people during the 2008 recession, and our layoffs took out all the useless middle management in the whole company, but it wasn't enough, so a lot of good people got the axe too.
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Those "useless management people" keep the companies pretty safe from discrimination law suits. None of those big tech companies can cut down on them relative to the actual productive part of the company, or they would.
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