(AP) LONDON — Google is cutting 12,000 jobs, or around 6% of its employees,
making it the latest tech business to do so as the COVID-19 pandemic-related economic boom wanes.
Google parent firm Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told colleagues on Friday of
the layoffs in an email that was also posted on the business' press blog.
It's one of the largest rounds of layoffs the company has ever experienced,
and it joins the tens of thousands of other job losses recently announced
by Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook parent company Meta, and other tech compan
ies as
they tighten their belts in the face of a gloomier outlook for the sector.
At least 48,000 job losses have been reported by significant corporations in the industry only this month.
We've had times of extraordinary growth over the last two years, Pichai wrote.
"We hired for a different economic reality than the one we confront now in order to meet and drive that development."
He said that the layoffs are a result of Google's "rigorous investigation" of its business practises.