Google lays off hundreds of employees to cut down expenses

Google parent Alphabet Inc. laid off hundreds of employees from its global recruiting team on Wednesday. This comes as an attempt by the tech giant to slow the hiring process.

Notably, Alphabet Inc. is the first “tech giant” to lay off employees this quarter. Others like Meta Inc, Microsoft Corp, and Amazon Inc processed the layoffs aggressively during early 2023.

It slashed about 6 per cent of workforce in January, which amounts to 12,000 jobs. The move in January marked Google’s first “major” layoff in the company’s history. NY Times reported that the company has 181,798 employees, as of June 30.
Employees who were laid off react on LinkedIn
Several employees who were laid on Wednesday took to LinkedIn to share their feelings. Among them, many noted how Google had always been a dream company to them. They worked for it, worked hard for it, however, eventually, it has come to an end.

All stories have two sides
While Alphabet Inc. will attempt to recover the economy from this move and it is fair on the side of the company to avoid losses to keep the business running, the employees working at the tech giant have lost their job in the blink of an eye. And, thus, they are on another job hunt.

In the aftermath of previous layoffs, Google has shifted its attention to developing its own A.I. to rival competitors, and it is simply costly. Most products have been updated with this technology and even introduced the chatbot, Bard, to compete with the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Alphabet’s President and Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat said in July that the company is committed to reorganising expenses to make room for investments that yield the highest returns.