Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, speaks at the Google I/O Developer Conference.
Andrej Sokolow | Photo Alliance | Getty Images
Google On Tuesday, CNBC provided acquisitions to employees in several departments, including knowledge and information learned and central engineering unit, marketing, research and communications teams.
Knowledge and Information, or K&I, is a unit that houses Google’s search, advertising and commercial sectors. Tuesday’s acquisition is the company’s latest effort to reduce the number of staff Google has been continuing in the waves since laying off 12,000 employees in 2023.
CNBC was unable to confirm the number of employees affected by the latest buyout round. The information previously reported that the company provided acquisitions to employees of the Search and Ad Unit.
The “voluntary exit program” applies to US-based employees, with some teams mandating office returns for remote workers living within 50 miles of the office, the company confirmed. They are expected to undertake hybrid work schedules “to bring people together more directly.”
“At the beginning of this year, some of our teams introduced a voluntary exit program with retirement for US-based Googlers, and some more offer programs to support important jobs going forward.”
K&I has around 20,000 employees. The unit was reorganized in October and was taken at the helm by Google’s executive Nick Fox. Fox wrote a note Tuesday that employees who are not meeting expectations may want to buy it, saying they are excited about the job and are doing well to stay with the company.
“I want to be very clear. If you’re excited about your work, cheerful and working well on future opportunities, I really (really!) I hope you don’t take this! “On the other hand, this VEP offers a supportive exit path for those who don’t feel like they’re in line with our strategy, feel energized by our work, or find it difficult to meet the expectations of your role.”
The buyout was to encourage more cost savings as Google expands its spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure in 2025, as it said.
Google has also overhauled its popular internal learning platform to focus on employees, moving from several great programs to more important products using the latest AI tools in its work, CNBC reported Tuesday.
File Photo: Nick Fox, Vice President of Products for Search and Assistant, will speak at a Google event in San Francisco, California on September 23, 2018.
Amy Osborne | AFP | Getty Images
Shopping is a new layoff
Google has made multiple acquisition offers on several units this year, making it a favourable strategy to reduce staffing.
“Platforms and Devices” – The company’s hardware unit consisting of 25,000 full-time employees working on Android, Chrome, Chromeos, Google Photos, Google One and Pixel Devices gave full-time, US-based employees the option to apply for an acquisition in January. People Operations, also known as the company’s human resources division, offered a voluntary acquisition in February. Google’s legal and financial team has also announced this year’s acquisition, a company spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.
As part of the People’s Management acquisition, mid- to senior level employees received a salary of up to 14 weeks and an additional week of retirement per year for the service.
In a memo on Tuesday, Fox said he was “extremely careful” to offer acquisitions for the other units. Fox also decided to offer shopping after hearing positive feedback from other units, he wrote.
After Google rebeled by lifting 6% of its workforce in January 2023, Pivot to Purchase said employees were unexpectedly blocked access to the corporate system. Some of them were longtime employees, stellar performers, or medical or maternity leave, CNBC reported at the time.
The spread of layoffs and suddenness at a time when the company was still reporting great incomes led to a decline in trust and morale. Executives later acknowledged the impact on morale.
Earlier this year, some employees praised Google’s decision to offer shopping rather than fire employees immediately, CNBC reported at the time.
“The P&D email sucks layoffs, but it’s correct that providing shopping is what we wanted first,” one employee wrote in an internal forum at the time.
However, shopping announcements often come with demand. Come back to the office. Google is requesting that some remote employees return to their offices if they want to continue working and avoid being part of the broader cost savings in the company, CNBC reported in April.
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