Google Group Alphabet cuts 12,000 jobs worldwide
The Corona pandemic gave a big boost to the business of the online giants and they hired new employees on a large scale. Now that the economy has cooled, one after the other, the groups are announcing massive job cuts.
Google parent Alphabet has become the next tech industry heavyweight to cut thousands of jobs. Around 12,000 jobs will be eliminated worldwide, as company CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post on Friday.
This corresponds to around six percent of the workforce. Employees in the U.S. have already been notified of the termination. "In other countries, this process will take longer due to local laws and practices," Pichai writes further.
Google was unable to say whether and how many jobs in Switzerland will be affected by the cuts when asked by news agency AWP. Google has had several offices in Zurich since 2004. According to its own information, the technology group employs more than 5,000 people from more than 85 nations in the city on the Limmat.
Other tech giants also cut jobs on a massive scale
Just this week, Microsoft also announced the elimination of 10,000 jobs. Before that, Amazon announced the elimination of 18,000 jobs and the Facebook group Meta of 11,000 jobs.
Recently, the business development of the tech giants slowed down, among other things because of the economic worries and high inflation. Google and Meta earn their money almost exclusively from online advertising - and felt the effects of the thriftiness of large and small companies. Amazon was hit by rising logistics costs as well as consumers' reduced willingness to buy.
Adjustment to the cooling economy
The decision to downsize weighed heavily on him, Pichai wrote. "And I take full responsibility for the decisions that got us here." After the "dramatic growth" in the pandemic, he said, they built up the workforce "in a different economic reality than today."
In terms of the extent of the cuts, Alphabet is roughly on a par with Microsoft, where just under five percent of jobs are being eliminated. Meta even cut 13 percent of its jobs. At Amazon, with its 1.5 million employees, mainly in logistics centers, 18,000 jobs make up only a small proportion, but hit office jobs hard. Twitter stands alone, where tech billionaire Elon Musk, as the new owner, immediately laid off about half of the approximately 7,000 employees.
Core business less affected
Pichai indicated that areas outside the core business at Alphabet will be more strongly affected: The company wants to adapt its workforce to the central priorities of the group. This includes, above all, the focus on the development of artificial intelligence that was decided a few years ago.
A special feature of Alphabet is that Google generates practically all of its revenues and uses them to help finance future projects such as Waymo's robot cabs and delivery drones. These areas cost Alphabet billions, but it has been trying to control spending for some time. (SDA)
