Tech giant Google has laid off hundreds of employees across multiple teams, with Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman also leaving the company, as the tech giant continues to cut costs, a Google spokesperson told Reuters in a statement.
In the statement, Google said it will lay off hundreds at its Voice Assistant unit, while a few hundred roles are being eliminated in the hardware team responsible for Pixel, Nest and Fitbit, with the majority of people in the augmented reality (AR) team being let go. Hundreds of roles in the search giant’s central engineering team are also being impacted.
Google bought health and fitness tracking company Fitbit for $2.1 billion in 2021 but has continued to roll out new versions of its Pixel Watch, a product that competes with some of Fitbit’s devices and also the Apple Watch.
“Throughout 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,” according to the statement.
The spokesperson did not specify the number of roles being impacted. It is not immediately clear how many people are part of the Google Assistant software and other teams.
The reorganization of certain teams comes at a time when companies like Microsoft and Google are betting on the rising adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology following the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Last year, Google announced plans to add generative AI capabilities to its virtual assistant. AI would allow the assistant to do things like help people plan a trip or catch up on emails and then ask follow-up questions.
In January 2023, Alphabet announced plans to cut 12,000 jobs, equivalent to 6% of its global workforce.
As of September 2023, Alphabet had 182,381 employees globally.
In the first 11 days of 2024, 18 tech companies have so far laid off 2,945 employees, according to the latest data available at layoffs.fyi.
Tech Layoffs in 2023
Even as the year 2022 started layoffs across tech companies in the world amid global economic uncertainties and overhiring during the coronavirus pandemic, the year 2023 continued the trend. The year 2023 witnessed a whopping 58 per cent more layoffs across companies as compared to 2022.
According to data from layoffs.fyi, a total of 1,175 tech companies laid off 2,60,509 employees in 2023 as compared with 1,064 tech companies letting go of 1,64,969 employees in 2022. This is 57.8 per cent more layoffs this year than that in 2022.
Amazon sacked the most number of employees this year letting go over 17,000 professionals, followed by Google (12,000), Meta (10,000), and Microsoft (10,000).
In India, Byju’s fired the most number of employees at 3,500 in two rounds, followed by Unacademy (12 per cent of total employees), ShareChat (500), Swiggy (380), Ola (200) and Physics Walla (120).
As of 2023, attrition rates stand at about 17-22 per cent.
(With inputs from agencies)
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