Google announces ‘difficult news’ as it fires 12,000 staff
Google will fire 12,000 members of staff, it has announced.
The mass layoffs follow similarly large cuts at Microsoft, Amazon and Meta, which together have fired tens of thousands of tech workers.
Like those companies, Google admitted that it had taken on staff in the hope that recent years of growth would continue. “To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today,” said Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, in an email to staff.
The company has undertaken a review of its business and will make cuts to products and functions that are not “aligned with our highest priorities as a company”, he said.
“This will mean saying goodbye to some incredibly talented people we worked hard to hire and have loved working with,” Mr Pichai wrote. “I’m deeply sorry for that.
“The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.”
Google said that it would be looking to “support employees” as they left the company. That will include a severance package as well as healthcare, job and immigration support for those being fired.
