Google Parent Company Alphabet Lays Off 12K Employees, As Big Tech Job Cuts Continue

One day after tech giant Microsoft announced that it is letting go of more than 10,000 of its global workforce, Alphabet Inc. (the parent company that owns Google) confirmed it is making a similar move.

In an internal memo initially shared with Google employees, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed that the move would affect more than 12,000 Google employees worldwide. It is estimated that these cuts will affect nearly 6% of Google's global workforce. Pichai made the official announcement in the form of an internal memo shared with Google employees, which was then shared on the company's official blog.

In his memo, Pichai confirmed that all of the affected employees in the U.S. have already been notified about the change to their employment status. However, he added that the process is expected to take longer for Google employees outside of the U.S., given the complexities associated with international labor laws. While the Google post doesn't reveal which company divisions have been affected by the latest job cuts, CNBC reports that job losses have affected teams "across the company." Reuters reports that the layoffs will more specifically affect corporate staff, recruiters, and members of the product and engineering teams.

Google confirmed that the affected employees will be paid for the entire 60-day notification period, and that the severance package also includes "16 weeks salary, plus two weeks for every additional year at Google." In addition, Google will also pay all the bonuses due for 2022, and employees will be able to cash in their remaining vacation time. This is in addition to six months of healthcare and immigration support for affected employees on a Visa.

In his memo, Pichai says he is "deeply sorry" for having to let go of some of the company's most talented employees.

"The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here," Pichai adds.

Pichai admits that Google has witnessed periods of dramatic growth in the past two years, and decided to ramp up hiring efforts to fuel that growth. However, given that the world is facing a very different economic reality now, it seems the company was evidently forced to let some people go. Pichai goes on to add that Google — now being a 25-year-old company — is "bound to go through difficult economic cycles," and that moments like these will only help them sharpen its long term focus on emerging technologies.

Google and Microsoft are the latest additions to the long list of tech giants that have announced mass layoffs across the board. The string of tech layoffs started with Twitter letting go of more than 50% of its employees in October 2022. Shortly after the Twitter layoffs, Meta announced that it was letting go of more than 13% of its workforce — a total of 11,000 employees. Amazon followed suit with 18,000 job cuts, followed by layoffs at HP that affected more than 34,000 employees.