After Meta & Amazon, Google CEO Sundar Pichai Hints At Second Round Of Mass Layoffs

Nearly a month after Jeff Bezos' Amazon and Mark Zuckerberg's Meta conducted a second round of mass layoffs, it seems that the bad news for tech sector employees will continue.

Google CEO Hints At Second Round Of Layoffs

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When Google parent Alphabet's CEO Sundar Pichai was recently asked if Google is carrying out or planning something similar, he said that the company is prioritising and moving people to its most important areas. But, during the interview with Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Pichai did not rule out another round of mass layoffs.

Google had already laid off 12,000 employees when it announced mass job cuts in January this year. Earlier this month, it was also reported that Google is cutting back on other costs as well, such as free snacks, gyms and other employee perks.

"We¡¯re very, very focused on this set of opportunities we have, and I think there¡¯s a lot of work left," Pichai told the publication referring to the company's ongoing work with its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Bard, new Workspace features in Gmail and Google Docs, and others.

"There¡¯s also an important inflection point with AI. Where we can, we are definitely prioritizing and moving people to our most important areas, so that is ongoing work," he added.

Also Read: Several Laid-off Google Employees Come Together To Build A New Startup

Making Google "20% More Efficient"

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Speaking about making the tech giant 20% more efficient, Sundar Pichai said "We¡¯re literally looking at every aspect of what we do, and as we said on our last earnings call, we¡¯re thinking about how to re-engineer our cost base in a durable way. We are definitely focused on creating durable savings. We are pleased with the progress, but there¡¯s more work left to do."

Responding to a question whether Google employees were asked to cut operating costs by 20% this year, Pichai said, "Yes, but not specifically worded that way."

"In different areas, we have different sub-goals, but at a company level, do we have goals to durably improve our margins and drive long-term savings?" he added.

What Pichai Had Said When Laying Off 12,000 Employees

In his email to Google employees in January, Pichai said, "I have some difficult news to share. We¡¯ve decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles. We¡¯ve already sent a separate email to employees in the US who are affected. In other countries, this process will take longer due to local laws and practices. This will mean saying goodbye to some incredibly talented people we worked hard to hire and have loved working with. I¡¯m deeply sorry for that. The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here."

"Over the past two years we¡¯ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today."

Also Read: What Google Employees Wrote In Their Open Letter To CEO Sundar Pichai

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