Google initiates workforce reductions across multiple teams

Google is implementing workforce reductions, affecting hundreds of employees across various teams, as the tech firm persists in its efforts to reduce costs this year as well.

The voice-based assistant and hardware teams are slated for reductions, affecting hundreds of employees. The augmented reality team will bear the majority of the impact.

“Throughout the second half of 2023, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, and to align their resources to their biggest product priorities. Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organisational changes, which include some role eliminations globally,” a Google spokesperson said.

The specific number of jobs affected is unclear.

Fitbit Co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman, along with other prominent leaders from the company, are reportedly leaving the organisation. Fitbit had been acquired by Google for $2.1 billion in November 2019.

The Alphabet Workers Union, a representative body for certain employees, shared a statement on the social media platform X.

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“Tonight, Google began another round of needless layoffs. Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter. We won’t stop fighting until our jobs are safe!” the union said.

In September, Google parent Alphabet had reportedly reduced its global recruiting team by hundreds of employees. Last January, Alphabet trimmed its workforce by approximately 12,000 employees, or around 6% of its global workforce.

As of September 30, 2023, Alphabet’s employee count was 182,381—down from 186,779 in 2022.

During the third-quarter earnings call, commenting on the company’s headcount, Ruth Porat, Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet and Google, said, “We are maintaining a slower pace of headcount growth, reflecting product prioritisation and reallocation of talent to support our most important growth opportunities.”