Google is planning to let go of more employees this year, according to CEO Sundar Pichai's message to the staff.
According to an internal memo cited by Verge, Pichai said that the job cuts are aimed at simplifying operations and speeding up certain areas by reducing layers in the company.
In the upcoming layoffs, Google aims to use artificial intelligence and automation to make work more efficient. Pichai said that these job cuts won't be as extensive as last year's and won't impact every team.
Last week, Google laid off hundreds of employees in various teams, including Voice Assistant, Pixel, Nest, Fitbit, advertising sales, and augmented reality. The cuts affected both regular employees and executives.
Bloomberg reported that 630 workers, including four vice presidents and 25 directors, were laid off. The Alphabet Workers Union stated that over 1,000 workers have been let go in total.
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The co-founders of Fitbit, James Park, and Eric Friedman, are also leaving Google as part of the reorganisation.
In January 2023, Alphabet had announced its plan to cut 12,000 jobs, which amounted to 6 per cent of its global workforce. As of September 2023, the company had 182,381 employees globally, compared to 190,700 before the layoffs in the previous year.
Amazon.com Inc. also recently laid off hundreds of staff in its Prime Video and studios business. Overall, tech firms have let go of over 7,500 employees in January, as reported by the tracking website Layoffs.fyi.