Google lays off hundreds of workers across Assistant, AR, engineering

New year kicks off with new round of job cuts

Trade

Image: Dotdash Meredith

Shares of Alphabet dropped 0.9% in intraday trading Thursday following reports that Google would start the new year with hundreds of layoffs in a fresh drive to cut costs.

Google said hundreds of roles will be eliminated, impacting several teams including the Assistant team that oversees Google’s voice-activated digital assistant, the augmented reality hardware section of its devices and services product area team, and Google’s central engineering team.

“We’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead. 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. Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally. We’re continuing to support any impacted employees as they look for new roles here at Google and beyond,” a Google spokesperson told Investopedia.

The Alphabet Workers Union, a union representing Google employees, called the layoffs “needless,” adding that “the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter.”

Google’s last major layoff spell was at the start of 2023, when the company laid off approximately 12,000 workers, about 6% of its workforce.

Shares of Alphabet were 0.9% lower at $141 per share as of about 12:25 p.m. ET Thursday. They have gained more than 54% over the past year.

Google isn’t the only name in Big Tech making cuts this month.

2024 continues the trend of layoffs started last year. After Amazon and Google, game (chat) platform Discord is also putting people out of work.

An unconfirmed report in The Verge has reported that Discord is cutting about 17% of its total workforce – about 170 jobs. Amazon is also laying off an unspecified number of employees across game streaming platform Twitch, Prime Video and MGM Studios, which was acquired for $8.5 billion in 2022. A report from The Information put the losses at Twitch alone to be 500 jobs.

News Wires

Read More: Google