Google parent company Alphabet is laying off 12,000 employees, with the first round of layoffs including recruiters, software engineers, user experience (UX) professionals, and workers in Google Cloud, which is widely regarded as the third largest cloud offering after Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. The layoffs represent about 6% of Alphabet’s workforce, surpassing the 10,000 employees that Microsoft recently announced it would cut, which accounts for 5% of its workforce.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has said that he remains confident about “future growth” given the opportunities ahead and the company’s “early investments” in artificial intelligence. He stated, “I am confident about the huge opportunity in front of us thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI. To fully capture it, we’ll need to make tough choices. So, we’ve undertaken a rigorous review across product areas and functions to ensure that our people and roles are aligned with our highest priorities as a company. The roles we’re eliminating reflect the outcome of that review. They cut across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions.”
Despite the layoffs, Alphabet still lists almost 1,000 job openings on its website. Recently posted roles include a senior software engineer for Google Cloud networking, a fleet transition program manager for the global infrastructure group, and a level three software engineer for infrastructure in Google Cloud security and privacy.
Many former employees have taken to LinkedIn to express their sadness and gratitude for their time with the company. Some have shared that they found out about their layoffs through an automated email and have shared their disappointment at the news.
The layoffs have affected a wide range of employees, including those in Google Cloud, sales and partnerships. Some former employees who have posted about their layoffs on LinkedIn include the head of strategic product partnerships for Search, a global seller enablement employee for Google Cloud customer experience, a UX solution engineer for cloud solutions studio, and a technical program manager for Google Cloud’s Tensor Processing Units (TPU) system software used for machine learning workloads.
Overall, the layoffs at Alphabet are impacting a variety of roles and departments, with a significant number of positions being eliminated in Google Cloud, engineering, recruiting, and UX design. This is a significant development for the company and will likely have a significant impact on the affected employees and the company’s operations moving forward.