Google CEO announces major job cuts as part of
- Google will fire 10% of its managers, directors and VPs
- By 2024, more than 1,300 Googlers will have lost their jobs
- The company faces threats from rivals and regulators
Google is reportedly planning to cut 10% of its manager, director and VP positions in an ongoing effort to increase efficiency and improve the company’s operating costs.
The news (via Business insider) comes at the end of a troubling year for the company – although layoffs were nowhere near 13,000 in 2023, hundreds of people have lost their jobs at the company as part of several rounds of layoffs, including 1,000 at the start of 2024 and another 300 in May (via fired.fyi).
The latest change, announced by Google CEO Sundar Pichai at a recent all-hands meeting, hopes to simplify the organizational structure.
Google fires its own managers
Employees familiar with the matter shared some management positions and were cut altogether, while others would be converted to non-management positions. This commonly used technique is intended to reduce the layers in a company’s organizational structure in an effort to increase efficiency.
The reality is that this is just another step that is part of the company’s overall ambition to be more efficient. Pichai set itself the goal of becoming 20% more efficient in September 2022. His next big round of layoffs, which affected 12,000 people in one fell swoop, likely addressed a large part of that.
However, this may not be enough for Google, which is under threat in more than one area. Artificial intelligence efforts have already been dampened by OpenAI’s immense success with ChatGPT, and now that tool is threatening Google.com’s market dominance. In addition, Google’s dominance in the search market has recently come under fire, with other business units also open to possible regulatory action.
Ny Breaking has asked Google to confirm the latest management layoffs and provide further context, but we did not receive an immediate response.