Over 1,250 Google employees sign petition for job security and fair severance amid ongoing layoffs

Google

Amid ongoing layoffs, several Google employees in the US and Canada have started an internal petition titled “job security” as they worry about their future in the company. A CNBC report says that so far over 1250 employees have signed the petition.

“We, the undersigned Google workers from offices across the US and Canada, are concerned about instability at Google that impacts our ability to do high quality, impactful work,” the petition says.

The employees in the petition have stated that Google is financially stable, so the layoffs don't make sense and seem unnecessary and unfair. They are particularly frustrated because they don’t understand why so many of their colleagues are being let go.”Ongoing rounds of layoffs make us feel insecure about our jobs. The company is clearly in a strong financial position, making the loss of so many valuable colleagues without explanation hurt even more,” it read.

Google’s new Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Anat Ashkenazi, has said that cost-cutting is a major priority, especially as the company invests more in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in 2025. She mentioned that there are still more ways to reduce expenses, which made employees nervous about further layoffs. When employees asked for clarity, Google’s leadership didn’t provide specific details.

The petition calls on Google CEO Sundar Pichai to offer voluntary buyouts before laying people off, guarantee severance pay for laid-off employees, not use performance reviews as an excuse to fire workers.

Some employees believe that Google might be giving low performance ratings just to layoff employees easily. However, Google has denied those allegations and said that performance reviews are fair and based on individual roles and expectations.