Google lays off 10% of managerial staff: Report

According to news reports, CEO Sundar Pichai had indicated the cuts will take place at the manager, director, and vice-president levels.

Some of these employees who have lost their jobs will be "transitioned to individual contributor roles" and some others will be "role eliminations". The layoffs are the fourth this year.

Also read: Google laying off hundreds of staff from various teams

Threat of AI

This news comes due to the growth of AI, or Artificial Intelligence, and because rivals like OpenAI have released products that industry experts have said can turn into a threat for Google Search. Google search accounted for over 57 per cent of its revenue last year.

Google has also introduced generative AI features in its products and launched Gemini 2.0, its most advanced AI model this month. Pichai said the new model would herald "a new agentic era" with AI models designed to understand and make decisions about the world.

The release had an impact on Google shares, which went up by more than four per cent on Wall Street. The stock had already gained 3.5 per cent the day before after the company released a breakthrough quantum chip.

Also read: Sundar Pichai: Layoffs at Google prevented worse issues

Fourth layoff this year

The fourth layoff this year, Google had eliminated a few hundred positions in the global advertisements team in January and a 100 more jobs across its cloud unit in June.

Since Alphabet Inc.-owned Google launched its efficiency drive in September 2022, the company had eliminated over 12,000 roles, or 6.4 per cent of its global workforce by January the next year.

In an open letter to employees then, Pichai took "full responsibility for the decisions that led ushere", but said the company had to fuel preceding periods of dramatic growth".

The company was going through a "rigorous" and company-wide efficiency audit that included reviewing product areas, functions, levels, and regions across Alphabet, Pichai added.

He also admitted the company could have handled the layoffs better. And pointed out that this is difficult for any company to go through.

"At Google, we really haven't had a moment quite like that in 25 years... (but) it became clear that if we didn't act, it would have become worse...", he had said.

Meanwhile, Pichai also spoke about a transformation of the corporate culture and the need to redefine its 'Googleyness', which is meant to express what Google looks for in employees it hires.