Google is laying off hundreds of employees across its Pixel, Nest, Fitbit, and Assistant divisions, the company said in a statement on Thursday. Google’s augmented reality team was also hit with layoffs, according to a report by 9to5Google.
“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 said in a statement. “Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally.”
The Alphabet Workers Union, the organization representing Google employees and contractors, said the layoffs were “needless” and accused Google of continuing to “fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter.” It recommitted to its goal to protect workers.
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!
— Alphabet Workers Union (AWU-CWA) (@AlphabetWorkers) January 11, 2024
Some of these layoffs could be due to organizational changes, and it’s likely that affected employees could reapply for open positions at Google.
Google’s layoffs come as the tech industry saw massive firings early last year. Not only did Google lay off a significant amount of employees, so too did Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and X, the social media website formerly known as Twitter. There were 263,000 people laid off in tech last year alone, according to Fortune. The reasons for the layoffs were numerous, with some companies downsizing after sizing up extensively during the pandemic while others were looking to prioritize other product categories.
2024 is already showing that the tech layoff trend will continue. This month, layoffs have hit Amazon Prime Video and Amazon-owned video game streaming website Twitch, as well as software developer Unity Technologies and Xerox. Discord, the chat platform popular with gamers, also said it would be laying off 170 people, or 17% of its workforce, earlier Thursday. Duolingo laid off 10% of its contractors, with their roles reportedly being taken over by AI.
It’s not clear how much the rise in AI adoption might have influenced these layoffs or how consumers will be affected by the changes. But 2024 is off to a familiar start for the tech industry.
A report by TechCrunch says that over 1,000 employees at Google were laid off. CNET hasn’t independently verified the report.