Google laid off a whole lot of workers throughout a number of divisions together with engineering and providers late Wednesday.
The affected divisions embody voice-activated Google Assistant as a part of the information and data product group restructuring; and the Units and Providers PA (DSPA) group that manages Pixel, Nest, and Fitbit {hardware}.
The corporate, which had 182,000 workers as of September 30, 2023, confirmed this growth however downplayed it via an announcement to point the job cuts had been a part of organizational modifications.
“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. Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally,” a Google spokesperson stated in an announcement.
The Alphabet Employee Union stated on X that the layoffs had been “needless” and the corporate can’t “continue to fire our coworkers” whereas making billions.
Google has additionally let go of most of its AR {hardware} group and can work with different OEMs, as first reported by 9to5Google. The report additionally talked about that Google will now have one core {hardware} engineering group as a substitute of separate groups engaged on Pixel, Fitbit, and Nest.
The corporate additionally confirmed to TechCrunch that Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman are leaving as a part of this restructuring.
Park performed a pivotal position in introducing the brand new Pixel Watch line of smartwatches to Google’s {hardware} line up.
Google introduced that it’s buying Fitbit for $2.1 billion in 2019 The deal took two years to pass regulatory approval and was finalized in 2021. Since then the corporate has been merging Fitbit merchandise into Google’s personal choices. As an illustration, final yr, the search large began prompting Fitbit users to migrate to Google accounts.
Individually, the corporate has additionally let go of individuals engaged on the Google Assistant group, as reported by Semafor. The corporate began infusing AI-powered options in Google Assistant through Bard last year in a bid to broaden Assistant “beyond voice.” In October, in the course of the Pixel occasion, Google stated that Assistant may look via apps like Gmail and Drive to reply to queries associated to particular emails and recordsdata.
Final yr, Google had rolling layoffs in several groups together with the Waze mapping service in June, its recruiting team in September, and its news division in October. Google’s newest company-wide layoff comes a yr after the tech large let go of roughly 12,000 roles, or 6% of its workforce, in January 2023.
