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Google has announced it will cut some 12,000 jobs in response to global economic conditions.
According to Bloomberg (opens in new tab) (paywall), Google SEO Sundar Pichai sent an email to staff on Friday notifying them of the incoming layoffs, which will account for about 6% of the company’s total workforce.
It follows earlier this month when Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced cuts to Verily and Intrinsic, their health and robotics software divisions, respectively.
New priorities
Pichai stated in the email that the reason for the layoffs was to “sharpen our focus, redesign our cost base, and refocus our talent and capital on our highest priorities.”
One such priority is the company’s focus on AI, perhaps in response to the hype around Open AI’s ChatGPT, which is backed by rivals Microsoft.
Pichai added, “I am confident in the tremendous opportunity ahead of us through the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI,” likely referring to the company’s acquisition of DeepMind AI in 2014. .
But he added that in order to fully capture it, we have to make hard choices.
Google’s fourth-quarter revenue grew year-over-year, from $65.1 billion to $69 billion, but earnings fell from $18.0 billion to $13.9 billion. Pichai also said last year that hiring would slow down.
The major tech layoff phenomenon appeared to have been sparked by Twitter, after Elon Musk acquired the company last October and promptly laid off about half of the staff (opens in new tab).
Next came Microsoft with recently announced 10,000 layoffs, Amazon with 18,000 and Meta with 11,000 (opens in new tab). Sophos and Intel also recently announced mass layoffs to cut costs.