Alphabet, the parent company of Google, said today (Jan. 20) it will lay off about 12,000 employees, or 6 percent of its workforce, to slash costs. Alphabet is the latest big tech company to announce major job cuts in recent weeks, following Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook parent Meta.
Alphabet shares jumped 4 percent in today’s morning trading.
CEO Sundar Pichai announced the layoffs in an email to employees on the company website. Affected U.S. employees will remain on the company’s payroll for 60 days and receive at least 16 weeks salary in severance, in addition to other benefits, the email said.
Like many other big tech companies, Alphabet went on a hiring spree during the pandemic, adding more than 50,000 people. But Google’s core digital advertising business took a hit in recent quarters, forcing the company to reevaluate its spending. Alphabet also owns YouTube, Fitbit and five other companies.
“We hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today,” Pichai said in today’s email.
The CEOs of Amazon, Microsoft and Meta said similar things when announcing headcount cuts. Microsoft said Jan. 18 it would slash 10,000 jobs. Amazon has started eliminating 18,000 jobs, and Meta is cutting 11,000. This makes Apple the only big tech company that hasn’t announced major layoffs yet.