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Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, January 30, 2023.
Marlena Sloss | Bloomberg | getty images
Google Several hundred jobs were cut at the company late Wednesday as it pushes for efficiency and focuses on its “biggest product priorities,” a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC.
The layoffs will impact employees in Google’s hardware and central engineering teams, as well as employees of its voice-activated software product Google Assistant. According to Google, other parts of the company were also affected
Shares of Alphabet, the company that owns Google, were down 1% on Thursday.
The announcement marks Google’s latest cost-cutting effort as it works to rein in its dramatic headcount increase during the pandemic. Last January, Google cut its workforce by 12,000 people, or about 6% of full-time employees. The company made other cuts in its recruiting and news divisions at year’s end.
Google has also focused on prioritizing growth in areas such as artificial intelligence, launching products like chatbot Bard and large language model Gemini as it races to keep up with competitors. Microsoft And Amazon,
A Google spokesperson told CNBC, “To best position us for these opportunities, during the second half of 2023, many of our teams have focused on becoming more efficient and working better and reallocating our resources to our biggest product priorities.” Made changes to align with.” statement. “Some teams are continuing to make these types of organizational changes, including eliminating some roles globally.”
CNBC found that Google also made significant cuts to diversity, equity and inclusion programs last year.
alphabet labor union expressed disappointment The latest round of layoffs at Google were called “unnecessary” in a statement late Wednesday at X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Our members and teammates work hard every day to create great products for our users, and the company can’t fire our coworkers despite making billions every quarter,” the group wrote in a post. “We won’t stop fighting until our jobs are safe!”
The cuts at Google were first reported by 9to5Google and Semafor.
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