More layoffs in the tech industry
Google wants to cut hundreds of jobs
January 18, 2024, 7:34 a.m
The technology group Google is to reduce its workforce in some areas of the company. This continues a trend. Other companies in the industry also want to reduce the number of employees.
According to a report, Google employees will have to prepare for further job cuts this year. “These job cuts are not on the scale of last year’s cuts and will not affect all teams,” CEO Sundar Pichai announced in a memo to employees of the Alphabet subsidiary, according to the US technology website “The Verge”.
“We have ambitious goals and will invest in our big priorities this year,” said Pichai. “The reality is that we have to make tough decisions to create the capacity for these investments.” The layoffs would focus on structuring the company more efficiently.
According to a report in the New York Times, 100 employees will be laid off at the video platform YouTube, among others. Last week, Google announced that it would cut hundreds of jobs in the areas of voice assistance, advertising marketing, augmented reality and in the hardware teams responsible for Pixel, Nest and Fitbit. In January 2023, Alphabet unveiled plans to cut 12,000 jobs, or six percent of its global workforce. In September 2023, the company employed 182,381 people worldwide.
Other tech companies had also announced in recent weeks that they would be cutting jobs. Amazon wants to lay off hundreds of employees in its Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios divisions, continuing its recent job cuts. At the Amazon live streaming unit Twitch, 500 jobs will be cut, which corresponds to around 35 percent of the people employed there. The video game software provider Unity announced a reduction of 25 percent of its jobs. This affects 1,800 people.