Google CEO Sundar Pichai has a message for his employees: Expect more layoffs in 2024, but it won’t be as bad as 2023.
Over 1,000 Google employees have been laid off this month across various departments—from Google Assistant to its Devices and Services groups—as the leader of the $307 billion IT giant told his employees to prepare for more layoffs ahead.
“Many of these changes are already announced, though to be up front some teams will continue to make specific resource allocation decisions throughout the year where needed, and some roles may be impacted,” Pichai told Google employees in an internal memo Wednesday, which was first reported by The Verge.
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Google’s CEO said employee layoffs this year were about “removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity” in certain areas. Pichai said the layoffs are necessary for the company to be able to invest in its biggest priorities, such as artificial intelligence.
“We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year,” Pichai told Google employees. “The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices.”
Google Layoffs Hit Devices And Services, Google Assistant, YouTube
This month, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company has laid off over 1,000 employees.
Google is cutting a few hundred employee roles in each division inside its Google Assistant software business. Google told CRN that it was “restructuring” itself to help boost Google Assistant as it implements new generative AI technology, such as AI chatbot Google Bard, to build a new and improved Google Assistant.
Google also confirmed this month that it is laying off hundreds of employees inside its Devices and Services business unit. These layoffs will mostly impact Google’s augmented reality division as well as Google’s Nest, Fitbit and Pixel hardware groups.
This week, Google also reportedly let go about 100 employees inside YouTube.
Google CEO: 2024 Layoffs ‘Will Not Touch Every Team’
Pichai told employees that although layoffs will continue throughout 2024, the scale of these reductions will not be similar to January 2023, when Google said it would be laying off 12,000 employees.
“These role eliminations are not at the scale of last year’s reductions and will not touch every team,” Pichai wrote in his memo. “But I know it’s very difficult to see colleagues and teams impacted.”
Google did not respond to comment on whether employees at Google Cloud have been let go in January.
Regarding the layoffs in 2024, Google in a statement to CRN last week said the company is investing in its biggest priorities.
“To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the 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,” Google said.
Google is set to report the financial results of its fourth fiscal quarter 2023 on Jan. 30.