After Microsoft, Google’s Alphabet to lay off 12,000 employees globally

A day after tech giant Microsoft fired its 10,000 employees, Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., is all set to lay off 12,000 of its workforce globally.

Incidentally, it is not only the tech sector that is witnessing the layoffs, as online food delivery platform Swiggy on Friday laid off 380 employees as part of a “restructuring exercise” citing challenging macroeconomic conditions.

Layoffs after review of operations: Pichai

In an email to employees, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said: “I have some difficult news to share. We’ve decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles.” Pichai said the layoffs at Google were carried out after a rigorous review of its operations. The jobs being eliminated cut across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions, he said.

“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today,” Pichai said in his mail, which was also posted on the company’s news blog.

“We’ve already sent a separate email to employees in the US who are affected. In other countries, this process will take longer due to local laws and practices,” Pichai said. “I’m deeply sorry for that. The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here,” he added.

Also read: Amazon to lay off over 18,000 workers, CEO cites ‘uncertain economy’

Not the first tech giant to resort to layoffs

With the announcement, Google has joined a host of other tech giants that have resorted to job cuts, including its rival Microsoft Corp, amid the global economic downturn and rising inflation.

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced 10,000 job cuts, or nearly 5 per cent of its workforce. Amazon is also cutting 18,000 jobs and Facebook parent Meta is trimming 11,000 positions.

According to reports, Google’s layoffs have come following pressure from investors to adopt a more aggressive strategy to curb spending. Google has also resorted to a series of cost-cutting moves in the recent months.

Also read: Recession fears? Microsoft to sack 10,000 employees

Overhiring a case of poor judgment: Swiggy

Meanwhile, Swiggy CEO Sriharsha Majety said that overhiring was a case of “poor judgement” where he should have done better. In an internal email, Majety, Co-Founder and CEO, also apologised to the affected employees and said the “extremely difficult decision” taken after “exploring all available options” and offered an employee assistance plan for the impacted people.

Majety said the growth rate for food delivery has slowed down versus the company’s projections. “This meant that we needed to revisit our overall indirect costs to hit our profitability goals. While we had already initiated actions on other indirect costs like infrastructure, office/facilities etc., we needed to right-size our overall personnel costs also in line with the projections for the future,” he added.

Earlier in the morning, he had addressed a townhall of Swiggy employees. As part of the employee assistance plan, Swiggy has offered cash payout, ranging from three to six months based on the affected employees tenure and grade. They will receive either an assured three months’ pay or notice period plus 15 days’ exgratia for every completed year of service plus balance earned leave as per policy, whichever is higher.

(With agency inputs)