Google parent Alphabet’s self-driving technology unit, Waymo, has laid off 137 employees, in its second round of job cuts this year, bringing total cuts for the year to 8 per cent of its workforce, according to news agency Reuters. In January also, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sacked 12,000 employees.
With the latest layoff, Waymo has fired 209 employees this year. It has eliminated some engineering roles as part of the cuts to “focus on commercial success”, the company said in a statement, according to Reuters.
The job cuts at Waymo are part of wider layoffs across the auto and tech industry, including at Rivian Automotive Inc, General Motors Co and Meta Platforms Inc. Companies, in general, have found that developing fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) that can go everywhere has proven harder and more expensive than expected, and prospects of a profitable robotaxi business likely remain several years away.
Investors and industry watchers have been concerned about billions of dollars that have been poured into the self-driving technology sector in a short span of time to commercialize it.
Ford Motor Co and Volkswagen AG pulled the plug on self-driving unit Argo AI in November. General Motors Co burned through nearly $2 billion in 2022 at its robotaxi unit, Cruise, and said it anticipates spending even more this year.
In November 2022, activist investor TCI Fund Management said Waymo is the biggest component of the Google-parent’s Other Bets segment and it has not justified excessive investment.
Alphabet said in January it would slash 12,000 jobs, which would affect a large number of employees who support experimental projects. Its health science unit, Verily Life Sciences, said in January it had laid off over 200 employees, or about 15 per cent of its workforce.
The year 2023 is set to become the worst year for tech employees as in just two months, 417 companies have laid off more than 1.2 lakh workers globally. In comparison, 1,046 tech companies — from Big Tech to startups — laid off more than 1,61 lakh employees in 2022, as per the data by layoffs tracking site Layoffs.fyi.
In January alone, close to 1 lakh tech employees lost jobs globally, dominated by companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce and others. In total, nearly 3 lakh tech employees have now lost jobs in 2022 and till February this year.
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