New Delhi: After a recent string of layoffs, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has warned employees of more job cuts in the coming months in an effort to “simplify execution” in the Alphabet-owned company, reported The Verge.
Sundar Pichai said in a memo that the layoffs this year will focus on “removing layers” from several departments to drive velocity in the company, the report added. “These role eliminations are not at the scale of last year’s reductions, and will not touch every team,” he was quoted as saying.
The company recently cut hundreds of jobs across its Voice Assistant and hardware departments. Google Nest, Pixel, Fitbit, ad sales team, and augmented reality team were the worst hit in these layoffs.
Earlier, in January 2023, Alphabet announced plans to cut 12,000 jobs, or 6%, of its global workforce. As of September 2023, the company had 182,381 employees globally. This was the biggest layoff in the history of Google, but was “essential” for the company, Pichai said. Google laid off these employees as a cost-cutting measure amid the massive restructuring in the company’s employee structure. The big tech firm also ended up firing Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman during this restructuring.
Notably, the new year kicked off with a string of layoffs at big global tech firms as they continue to make investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and employ cost-cutting measures. Global big tech firms like Google and Amazon have laid off hundreds of employees in the first two weeks of January 2024, and have announced that they will continue to cut more jobs due to advancements in AI in the next few months.
