Google has announced that it will cut about 12,000 jobs, in response to the global economic conditions.
to me bloomberg (Opens in a new tab) (paywall), Google SEO Sundar Pichai sent an email to employees on Friday notifying them of the incoming layoffs, which will make up about 6% of the company’s entire staff.
It follows earlier this month, when Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced cuts in Verily and Intrinsic, its health and robotics divisions respectively.
New priorities
Pichai stated in the email that the reason for the layoffs is to “increase our focus, re-engineer our cost base, and direct our talent and capital to our highest priorities.”
Among those priorities is the company’s focus on artificial intelligence, perhaps in response to the hype around Open AI’s ChatGPT, which is supported by Microsoft’s competitors.
“I am confident in the tremendous opportunity ahead thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI,” Pichai added, likely referring to the company’s 2014 acquisition of DeepMind AI.
But, he added, to “take it over completely, we’ll need to make tough choices.”
Google’s revenue grew in the fourth quarter of last year compared to the previous year, from $65.1 billion to $69 billion, but profits fell from $18. billion to $13.9 billion. Pichai also said last year that hiring will slow.
The phenomenon of significant tech layoffs seems to have been sparked by Twitter, after Elon Musk acquired the company last October and immediately laid off about half of its staff. (Opens in a new tab).
Followed by Microsoft, which recently announced the layoffs of 10,000 employees, Amazon with 18,000, and the layoffs of Meta 11,000. (Opens in a new tab). Sophos and Intel also recently announced mass layoffs in cost-cutting moves.