Google laid off hundreds of workers across several departments on Wednesday night, seeking to cut expenses as it focuses on artificial intelligence and joining a wave of other companies that have cut technology jobs this year.
The Silicon Valley company has laid off employees in its core engineering division, as well as workers at Google Assistant, a voice-activated virtual assistant, and in the hardware division that makes the Pixel phone, Fitbit watches and the Nest thermostat, three people with knowledge of the cuts.
Several hundred employees from the company’s core engineering organization lost access to the company and received notices that their roles were being eliminated, two of the people said.
“We have had to make some difficult decisions about the continued employment of some Google employees, and we regret to inform you that your position will be eliminated,” the company told some workers in the division, according to a transcript reviewed by The New York Times.
Google has confirmed the Assistant outage, which Semafor previously reported, and the hardware layoff, which the 9to5Google blog previously reported.
“We are investing responsibly in our company’s biggest priorities and important opportunities ahead,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. After cuts throughout the second half of 2023, “some teams are continuing to make these types of organizational changes, which include eliminating some roles globally.”
The cuts continue the trend of layoffs in the technology field, after large companies such as Google, Meta, and Amazon laid off thousands of workers last year. Ten days later this year, more companies announced job cuts. Earlier on Wednesday, Amazon laid off hundreds of workers from its streaming service Twitch and Prime Video and MGM studios. Xerox said this month it would cut its 23,000 employees by 15 percent, and Unity Software, which provides video game software, said it would cut 1,800 jobs, or 25 percent of its workforce.
At Google, CEO Sundar Pichai has pushed the company since July 2022 to sharpen its focus and cut expenses as global economic conditions deteriorate. In January 2023, Google shed 6% of its workforce, or 12,000 people, in the largest layoffs the company has ever conducted. Since then, company executives have said they will try to cut costs significantly as it focuses on the growing field of generative artificial intelligence.
Google, which had 182,000 employees as of September 30, said Wednesday’s layoffs were part of a set of reorganizations that took place in the normal course of business.
The Alphabet Workers Union, a group representing more than 1,400 workers at Alphabet, Google’s parent company, called the layoffs “unnecessary.”
“Our members and colleagues work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while it makes billions every quarter,” the group said in a post on social media site X.
Mike Isaac Contributed to reports.