Google lays off hundreds of workers

Google is laying off hundreds of workers across its virtual assistant, augmented reality and central engineering teams, a spokesperson confirmed to The Hill on Thursday. 

The layoffs will impact a few hundred employees working on Google Assistant, as well as a few hundred workers from other parts of the company’s knowledge and information product teams, the spokesperson said. The spokesperson declined to specify how many Google employees would be laid off.

Another few hundred roles from the Digital Services and Product Area are also being eliminated, with the majority coming from the first-party Augmented Reality Hardware team, while a few hundred other positions on the central engineering team are also being cut.

“As we’ve said, we’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” the Google spokesperson said in a statement.

“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,” they added. “Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally.”

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The layoffs appear to be part of the latest wave of cuts in the tech industry; Amazon also announced Wednesday it would lay off several hundred employees in its streaming and studio operations, Reuters reported. 

The video game streaming platform Twitch similarly said it plans to lay off 500 workers, or about 35 percent of its workforce, according to Bloomberg.

The industry faced mass layoffs early last year. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, cut about 12,000 jobs in January, while Microsoft laid off about 10,000 employees and Amazon reduced its headcount by about 18,000 that same month.

The Alphabet Workers Union slammed the cuts in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, late Wednesday night, calling it “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,” the union wrote. “We won’t stop fighting until our jobs are safe!”