Google CEO anticipates more layoffs ‘throughout the year’

Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, in a memo to employees, warned of more layoffs this year. This comes after the company laid off over 1,000 workers across several divisions last week, in addition to cutting 100 jobs at YouTube.

According to Pichai’s memo, the company will need to make “tough choices” to achieve its ambitious objectives, as reported by The Verge. He also stated that this year’s layoffs will not be as extensive as last year’s when the company terminated the roles of 12,000 employees, representing 6% of its workforce.

He said in an email to staffers;

These role eliminations are not at the scale of last year’s reductions, and will not touch every team. But I know it’s very difficult to see colleagues and teams impacted.

Many of these changes are already announced, though to be upfront, some teams will continue to make specific resource allocation decisions throughout the year where needed, and some roles may be impacted.

Several teams at Google, including those in hardware, engineering, ads, and services, were affected by the layoffs last week, with over 1,000 employees losing their jobs. At the same time, Google disclosed to TechCrunch that Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman are departing from the organization.

Additionally, the company recently let go 100 staff members from its YouTube division as part of its restructuring plan.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement in response to YouTube layoffs;

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.

Google isn’t the only notable tech company that has already made redundancies at the beginning of 2024. Earlier this month, the industry also saw Discord, Meta, Amazon, Twitch, Humane AI, Unity and Duolingo making similar moves at various scales.

Here’s hoping that LinkedIn’s timely launch of its AI-powered “Job Collections” feature will help those impacted quickly land a new post.