A view from Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, April 16th.
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Google This week he told staff at “People Operations” and cloud organizations that it plans to cut down on employees as part of an internal restructuring, CNBC learned.
According to a memo issued Tuesday by the chief of Fiona Cicconi, viewed by CNBC, the company will offer a voluntary exit program for full-time employees in Google’s relationships division, which will start from early March to early March.
The latest cuts come after Financial Director Anat Ashkenazi said that as Google expands its spending on AI infrastructure in 2025, one of her top priorities is to drive more cost savings. After the company reported revenue that missed its fourth quarter expectations on February 3, Google was in strong demand for AI Products and more.
As part of the HR acquisition, Level 4 and Level 5 employees will be eligible for 14 weeks of salary and an additional week of retirement per year for the service, the memo said. These are considered intermediate to advanced employees.
Apart from that, the company also cut several teams within the cloud unit, affecting mainly operational support staff, according to sources and separate internal memos. These moves include moving roles to other countries.
The company confirmed the CNBC changes and said the reorganization is part of a regular business course.
“Our teams continue to make changes to operate more efficiently, remove layers and set them up for long-term success,” Google spokesman Brandon Asberry said in a statement. “This work is ongoing as we continue to invest in our biggest priorities and important opportunities ahead.”
In January, Google executives said they would offer the acquisition to US-based employees of the company’s “platforms and devices” units ahead of the expected cuts. The unit houses more than 25,000 full-time employees working on Android, Chrome, Chromeos, Google Photos, Google One, Pixel, Fitbit and Nest.
The company said it supports all affected employees in line with local requirements, including the time to explore and apply Google’s various roles.
Cloud Cut
Cloud layoffs for alphabet-owned companies have impacted the unit’s sales operations, customer experience, internal trading and market recruitment teams, according to people familiar with the issues they asked to not name because they weren’t public.
Cloud is one of the company’s high-growth business units and is an advantage of AI products. In the fourth quarter, Cloud Unit revenues rose 30% from the previous year. Alphabet is trying to catch up with market leaders Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, thus pulling profits from the cloud business.
The roles of affected employees have been moved to India and Mexico City, according to people familiar with issues seen by CNBC and internal communications.
The company confirmed that the changes include consolidation or opening of roles in the US and other regions overseas. The presence of the largest employee of the Cloud Unit is still in the US and that has not changed, the company added.
The number of layoffs is unknown, but the company said the volume is small and the organization continues to hire for key sales and engineering roles.
Bloomberg reported the cut to Google’s cloud division on Wednesday.
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