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Alphabet, the parent company of Google, announced Friday that it will be cutting 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its staff, in the most recent tech downsizing.
Alphabet’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, said in a staff memo seen with Reuters that the company’s personnel has grown quickly 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.
Teams across the organisation, including recruiting, various corporate operations, as well as some technical and product teams, are impacted by the job losses at Alphabet.
The memo said that Alphabet has already emailed impacted employees, adding that the procedure will take longer in other countries due to local employment rules and practices.
United States employees are directly affected by the global cutbacks and would receive severance and six months of healthcare, as well as immigration support.
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The announcement comes at a time when both the economy and technology are showing great promise, and Google and Microsoft have been making investments in the developing field of software known as generative artificial intelligence.
Pichai said in the note, “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.”
Days earlier, rival Microsoft announced it would fire 10,000 employees.
Amazon said this month that it is eliminating 18,000 jobs, a small portion of its 1.5 million personnel, while commercial software provider Salesforce announced that it was eliminating 8,000 jobs, or 10 per cent of its staff.
Facebook’s parent company Meta declared that it would lay off 11,000 employees, or 13 per cent of its workforce last year. After acquiring the social media giant last year, Elon Musk also cut a chunk of employment at Twitter.
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Jaw de Guzman is the content producer for Comms Room, a knowledge platform and website aimed at assisting the communications industry and its professionals.
