Google laid off hundreds of employees across multiple departments on Wednesday evening to cut costs as it focuses on artificial intelligence, joining a wave of other companies cutting tech jobs this year.
The Silicon Valley company laid off employees in its core engineering department, as well as those who work on Google Assistant, a voice-controlled virtual assistant, and in the hardware division that makes the Pixel phone, Fitbit watches and the Nest thermostat , three people aware of the cuts said.
Two of the people said several hundred employees in the company's core technical organization lost company access and received notices that their roles had been eliminated.
“We have had to make some difficult decisions about the retention of some Google employees and regret to inform you that your position will be eliminated,” the company told some employees in the department, according to a text reviewed by The New York Times.
Google confirmed the Assistant cuts previously reported by Semafor and the hardware layoffs previously reported by the blog 9to5Google.
“We are investing responsibly in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities that lie ahead,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. After cuts in the second half of 2023, “some teams continue to make such organizational changes, which include eliminating some roles globally.”
The cuts continue a trend of layoffs in the tech sector after major companies like Google, Meta and Amazon laid off thousands of workers last year. Ten days after the start of this year, more companies announced job cuts. Early Wednesday, Amazon laid off hundreds of employees from its streaming service Twitch, Prime Video and MGM studios. Xerox said this month it would cut 15 percent of its 23,000 employees, and video game software provider Unity Software said it would cut 1,800 jobs, or 25 percent of its workforce.
At Google, Sundar Pichai, the chief executive, has been pushing the company since July 2022 to sharpen its focus and cut spending as global economic conditions worsened. In January 2023, Google laid off 6 percent of its workforce, or 12,000 people, in the company's largest layoffs ever. Since then, company executives have said they would seek to significantly reduce costs as the company focuses on the growing field of generative artificial intelligence.
Google, which had 182,000 employees as of Sept. 30, said Wednesday's layoffs were part of a series of restructurings carried out in the normal course of business.
The Alphabet Workers Union, a group representing more than 1,400 workers at Google parent Alphabet, called the layoffs “unnecessary.”
“Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to lay off our employees while making billions every quarter,” the group said in a post on social media site X .
Mike Isaac contributed reporting.