Google's parent firm Alphabet on Friday announced plans to cut 12,000 or 6 per cent of its global workforce, news agency Reuters reported, citing a memo shared by its chief executive officer Sundar Pichai.
The news came as a latest shock to the tech industry which has seen massive layoff since quite some time now. Earlier this week, Google's rival Microsoft announced to lay off 10,000 employees.
Sundar Pichai, Alphabet's CEO, said in the note, "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."
With the layoffs, Google joins a host of other tech giants that have drastically scaled back operations amid a faltering global economy and soaring inflation.
The cuts will affect jobs globally and across the entire company, Pichai told employees in an email on Friday, writing that he takes “full responsibility for the decisions that led us here,” according to a Bloomberg report.
“These are important moments to sharpen our focus, reengineer our cost base, and direct our talent and capital to our highest priorities,” Pichai wrote in the email.
Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Twitter and Amazon.com have all slashed jobs. Thanks to a resilient search engine business, Google has been one of the longest tech holdouts avoiding major workforce reductions. But the company is dealing with a slowdown in digital advertising and its cloud-computing division continues to trail Amazon and Microsoft Corp, the Bloomberg report added.
