Google lays off hundreds in hardware, voice assistant teams

Google lays off hundreds in hardware, voice assistant teams

Alphabet Inc.’s Google is laying off hundreds of staff working on its digital assistant, hardware and engineering teams, the company said as it continues its drive to cut costs.

Among the affected workers are those working on the voice-based Google Assistant and at the augmented reality hardware team. Workers in the company’s central engineering organization were also hit by the cuts, the company said.

“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,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally.”

Semafor first reported the layoffs to the Google Assistant team, while 9to5Google first reported the reorganization in the hardware team. Affected staff have begun receiving the news and will have the opportunity to apply for open positions elsewhere at Google, the company said.

The Alphabet Workers Union, which represents some of its employees, criticized the job cuts in a statement posted to the social network X, formerly known as Twitter.

Tonight, Google began another round of needless layoffs. Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter. We won’t stop fighting until our jobs are safe!

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— Alphabet Workers Union (AWU-CWA) (@AlphabetWorkers) January 11, 2024

“Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter,” the group said. “We won’t stop fighting until our jobs are safe!”