Tech giant Google has slashed several hundred jobs, across multiple divisions, including engineering and services, on Wednesday (January 10, 2024), media reports said.
The company said it is pushing to ensure the firm becomes more efficient.
“To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, and to align their resources to their biggest product priorities,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. “Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally.”
According to reports, the recent layoffs will impact employees within the tech giant’s hardware and central engineering teams, as well as workers across Google Assistant, its voice-activated software product.
The company also confirmed to TechCrunch that Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman are leaving as part of this restructuring.
In 2019, Google acquired Fitbit, Inc. at a fully diluted equity value of approximately $2.1 billion. The deal got regulatory approval and was finalised in 2021.
The Alphabet Workers Union expresses disappointment
The union said the latest layoff was ‘needless’.
“Tonight, Google began another round of needless layoffs. Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter. We won’t stop fighting until our jobs are safe!” the Union posted on X.
Fired Google employee shares his emotion on X
Kevin Bourrillion, a recently fired Google employee who had been working with the firm for the past 19 years, expressed his emotions on X and wrote: “End of an era! After 19 years of working at @Google, with more than 16 of them on the team that I founded, I made the tough decision yesterday morning to finally bite the bullet and find out that I’d been laid off overnight.”
He said: “Layoffs suck, but in my case… it’s fine, because I’ve needed some kind of change in my life for a very long time. And I have no plans to rush into anything else right now. I’ve got too much to do: cycling, reading, restarting my drum lessons, travel, family time. etc. etc.”
Showcasing his positive frame of mind, he further wrote: “I view my 19 years there and the people I got to work with and things I got to do as an immense blessing. No expressions of sympathy are called for in my case! And with that, I’m off to go figure out how to actually live my life!”