A group representing the interest of workers at Google’s parent company, the Alphabet Workers Union, has kicked against the latest moves by Google to lay off hundreds of staff working on its digital assistant, hardware, and engineering teams.
This is coming exactly one year after Google announced it was cutting 12,000 jobs across its operations globally, representing 6% of its workforce. The affected workers in the latest exercise included those working on the voice-based Google Assistant and the augmented reality hardware team. Employees in the company’s central engineering organization also got hit by cuts.
What the Union is saying
Disturbed by the new development, the Alphabet Workers Union in a post on its X handle on Thursday said:
- “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!”
Heat from competition
The reductions come as Google’s core search business feels the heat from rival artificial intelligence offerings from Microsoft Corp. and ChatGPT-creator OpenAI. During recent calls with investors, Google executives pledged to scrutinize their operations to identify places where they can make cuts, and free up resources to invest in their biggest priorities.
- “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,” Google said.
Amazon is laying off too
Meanwhile, in what appears to be another wave of tech layoffs that started in late 2022 to early 2023, another tech giant, Amazon Inc. also laid off hundreds of staff in its Prime Video and studios business this week.
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Mike Hopkins, who runs the streaming video and studios division, which includes the MGM unit the company acquired last year, announced the cuts in an email to employees on Wednesday.
- “Throughout the past year, we’ve looked at nearly every aspect of our business to improve our ability to deliver even more breakthrough movies, TV shows, and live sports in a personalized, easy-to-use entertainment experience for our global customers. As a result, we’ve identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact,” Hopkins wrote in the memo.
Amazon had also in January last year cut over 18,000 jobs from its stores and technology groups, citing uncertainties in the economy.
