Newsletter
Google laid off over a thousand workers across multiple teams last week, and for a while, the company’s CEO was notably silent. That changed Wednesday when CEO Sundar Pichai communicated with Google employees via an internal memo. Referencing the job cuts that were already revealed since Jan. 10, Pichai warned employees that more is to come. “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,” he said in the note, as reported by The Verge.
News broke last week that in an effort to streamline its hardware teams, Fitbit leaders left the company and hundreds of employees in its AR division were laid off. Google was getting out of the hardware AR market, per reports, but would continue supporting other OEMs. Then we learned that Google’s core engineering and Google Assistant teams also experienced cuts, which have been described as “role eliminations.” Just yesterday, Google laid off workers in its YouTube and ad sales divisions.
The exact number of cuts isn’t known, but they total more than a thousand layoffs, at the very least. It marks the second year of cuts in a row. Last year, around the same time, Google laid off 12,000 workers. According to Google’s CEO, the layoffs will continue in 2024.
What Google’s CEO (and its employees) are saying about 2024 layoffs
Google employees have been outspoken about the frequent layoffs at the company since 2023. “Thank you, our corporate overlords, for our new annual tradition,” one employee wrote in Memegen, the Google internal meme board. “Google culture changed dramatically last year with its first major round of layoffs,” another added.
After a quiet week, Google’s CEO is finally speaking about the highly-publicized layoffs in 2024. “We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year,” Pichai said in the memo to employees. “The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices.”
“These role eliminations are not at the scale of last year’s reductions, and will not touch every team,” he added. “But I know it’s very difficult to see colleagues and teams impacted.”
Pichai has tried to shift the narrative around the layoffs, describing them as necessary to increase efficiency. From his view, the job cuts are designed to “removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity in some areas.”
None of this will make Google employees feel any better about the company’s 2024 outlook. They’ll have to live with some degree of uncertainty, not knowing if their position will be eliminated until it happens.