The tech giant said it would lay off hundreds of employees in its voice assistant unit, and eliminate hundreds of positions from the hardware team responsible for Pixel, Nest and Fitbit. The augmented reality (AR) team is also affected, with the majority of people in it to be laid off.

The company has come out with the opinion that such extreme actions are necessary and are part of the organizational changes.

“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 said in a statement.

Alphabet’s employee union said in an X that the layoffs were “unnecessary” and that the company could not “continue to fire colleagues” while making billions.

Google has recently downsized its AR hardware team and opted for collaboration with other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), according to an initial report from 9to5Google. Additionally, there is a shift towards consolidating Google’s hardware engineering efforts into a unified core team, streamlining operations previously spread across Pixel, Fitbit, and Nest.

Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman are confirmed to be departing, as acknowledged by Google to TechCrunch. Notably, James Park played a crucial role in the introduction of the new Pixel Watch series of smartwatches within Google’s hardware portfolio.

In 2019, Google announced the acquisition of Fitbit for $2.1 billion, a process that underwent a two-year regulatory approval before finalizing in 2021. Since then, Google has integrated Fitbit products into its own offerings, exemplified by prompting Fitbit users to transition to Google accounts last year.

Simultaneously, the company made changes in its workforce, including personnel from the Google Assistant team, as reported by Semafor.

This latest company-wide layoff follows a larger workforce reduction of approximately 12,000 roles, or 6% of its employees, in January 2023.

“I am so happy to announce that on Monday I started back at Amazon on the Social Marketing team, the same team I was on before being laid off in January. I was re-hired, as a Product Marketing Manager, in a newly opened position so will be focusing on a different line of business than before. I feel so thankful to be back on such a great team and am looking forward to what this new (yet familiar) journey holds,” read her post.

Although the current occasion for a public statement is in a positive direction, a few months before, the Amazon employee shared his disappointment with the company’s decision and its layoff.

“Unfortunately, yesterday I woke up to the news that I was one of 18,000 employees laid off from Amazon. It is incredibly hard and I am still trying to process it all. I am sad because my journey at the company had just begun and I was working with some of the most incredibly smart people in the industry. I am still so grateful for the time I have spent there, the connections I have made and everything I learned. I am officially #opentowork looking for Social Marketing roles immediately. Thank you in advance for any connections, advice or opportunities you can offer! Feel free to message me here with leads”,

Shared by Paige Cipriani on LinkedIn in January.

Will the lay off trend turn positive?
Amazon laid off 500 of its employees in India recently. The layoffs affected various sectors of the company, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), human resources (HR) and support functions.We remind you that in March Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced the layoff of 9,000 employees worldwide, and in January the company also made layoffs that affected 18,000 employees worldwide.

The company, which is better known by its former name Google Self-Driving Car Project, has suffered a second round of layoffs, this time bringing the total number of staff laid off to 209 people, or 8%.

Investors and industry observers are troubled by the billions of dollars that have been poured into the self-driving technology sector in a short period of time to commercialize it.

However, this is not the only company that has taken such measures.

In January, Alphabet said it would cut 12,000 jobs, affecting a large number of employees who support experimental projects.

In addition, Verily Life Sciences also laid off more than 200 employees, or about 15% of its workforce.

The trend of layoffs continues to grow, including Rivian Automotive, General Motors, Meta Platforms and other U.S. companies reaching for these measures in an attempt to cut costs amid the looming recession.

Being out of work
Last November, Alex Gable received the happiest news of all, namely that he had become a parent. However, just a few months later, his happiness is marred with a notice of an all-employee meeting at the software company where he works.

Four hours later, Mr. Gable, 30, found himself forced to break the news to his wife. Months after choosing the company for its generous paternity leave policy and openness to work-life balance, he was fired, ironically while on paternity leave.

Worried by the unpleasant news, the now unemployed father is filled with anxiety about how he will raise his child.

Economic disruption
Workers in the technology and media industries are experiencing a period of huge economic disruption. After showering their employees with perks, in a tight labour market and a war for talent, companies have turned to mass layoffs, including Alphabet, which laid off 6% of its workers last month, and Microsoft, which cut nearly 5%.

These are the same companies that have expanded benefits in one particular area in recent years: paid parental leave and child care benefits.

Today, however, some of their employees are spending the first weeks of parenthood adjusting to life without work. LinkedIn and Twitter are evidence of this, with their accounts of workers who have been fired while on parental leave. This affects mental health, as has happened to many laid-off workers in a variety of fields, including immigrants whose visas are employment-related.

Technology workers believe their companies tricked them after offering them not only a job, but a lifestyle with childcare, mental health support and paid time off.

For new parents, the generous leaves are part of the lure. Many of them had assumed that their parental leave came with some legal protection, and were upset when they learned that they were caught up in the mass redundancies. Taking parental leave does not protect against mass layoffs unrelated to the leave, the New York Times reports on the subject.

There is no federal paid family leave policy in America. About 23% of private-sector employees have paid maternity leave, according to September 2022 data from career site Zippia. More than 90% of women take the full amount of leave offered, compared with about two-thirds of men, according to a study by Boston College’s Center on Work and Family.

But over the past five years, companies have increased family benefits for some workers in what human resources experts have called a “golden age” of corporate benefits.

The companies don’t keep their promises?

Tech companies have been particularly generous with parental leave compared with other industries. Google has increased its parental leave to 24 weeks from 18 in 2021, Meta offers parents 20 weeks, and Microsoft gives 20 weeks to birth mothers and 12 weeks to non-parents.

“It’s jarring because people do view it as job-protected leave without understanding that there are limits on the protection. Many people view it as a time when they’re not in a position to be job searching.”

said Megan Bisk, head of the employment law practice at Ropes & Gray.

The New York Times also shares the story of Nikki Woodall, who was an engineering recruiter at one of the largest tech companies in the world, agreed to share her experience without naming her employer. She had worked at the company for five years when she told her bosses she planned to go on six months’ maternity leave from last summer. Their family-friendly attitude gave her the confidence to break away from work completely. She says she quit without a second thought, “My job is in jeopardy.”

A month before she was due to return, she received a private email informing her that her job was closing.

The economic crisis has its consequences, and no matter how big a company you work for, or what position you hold – you can never be sure of keeping your job.

“While this is necessary to address the challenges we face today, I do not take this decision lightly.”

Chief Executive Bob Iger said during a conference call with Wall Street analysts.

The cuts are part of Disney’s $5.5 billion cost-cutting effort, Iger said. He outlined a reorganization that aims, among other things, to “put creativity back at the center of the company” and make its streaming business profitable.

In November, Iger stunned the entertainment world when he returned to head Disney, replacing Bob Chapek, whose brief tenure was marked by pandemic struggles and public relations missteps, The Washington Post reports.

Iger’s return was seen as a move to restore the company to the golden era he helped usher in, even as the company faced major hurdles, including a cooling streaming market, a stuttering theater business and some of Disney’s biggest franchises – like Marvel – that were in a state of flux. Iger then promised a return to what he described as the creative “heart and soul” of the company.

Iger described the cuts as a necessary part of a “transformation” that includes restructuring the company into three main segments: ESPN, theme parks and entertainment, including movies and the Disney Plus streaming service.

With such cuts, Disney becomes yet another company that has continued this unpleasant trend. Particularly companies in the technology, financial and housing sectors, which are more sensitive to rising borrowing costs due to higher interest rates and which go to the drastic measures of laying people off. But despite the high-profile layoffs, unemployment remains at its lowest level in decades.

In the email, he categorically states that he takes full responsibility for the actions that led to this, as well as the decisions taken. The cuts affect multiple business units. According to the Wall Street Journal, Alphabet’s recruiting group and departments focused on areas “outside the company’s core business.” Some engineering and product teams are also affected, according to CNBC.

Alphabet has not yet provided any information, but according to The Information, among those fired there are people who have performed excellently and some have earned from 500 000 to 1 million dollars a year.

Under Prabhakar Raghavan, who was in charge of search, ads, commerce and other areas, they covered Google Cloud, Chrome, Android and search.

Google Cloud, in particular, is said to have fired “workers in strategy, recruiting and so-called go-to-market teams that offer marketers data, training and research to close deals.”

The good news is that laid-off employees will receive at least two months’ notice, 16 weeks’ severance pay and two additional weeks’ pay for each year they worked for Alphabet. The vesting period for their restricted stock will be shortened by at least 16 weeks. Alphabet also plans to offer six months of medical coverage, job placement assistance and immigration assistance. The reason for the cuts are cost cutting measures being taken to stay afloat in these difficult times.

This is another company that has come to this decision. Meta Platforms Inc, Twitter Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are just a few examples of tech corporations that have also cut staff to keep operations going.

Tough economic times bring with them a not-so-pleasant trend of layoffs that is growing.

That figure exceeds the allowable number of 10,000 workers set just last year. The majority of the jobs to be cut are in the company’s retail and PTX (people, experience and technology) divisions. This includes the layoffs Amazon already made in November.

The CEO said affected employees would receive notices on January 18.

“The S-team and I are deeply aware that these role removals are difficult for people, and we do not take these decisions lightly or underestimate how severely they can impact the lives of those affected.”

says Andy Jassy.

“We work to support those affected and provide packages that include severance pay, transitional health insurance benefits and external job placement support.”

He continued.

Jassy said the company’s review for the coming year has been more difficult due to the uncertain economy and the fact that Amazon has been “hiring quickly over the past few years. The CEO said the job cuts will help Amazon pursue long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure.

However, this is not the only company taking such measures. In recent months, a large number of technology companies have announced layoffs as the sector reacts to the looming recession and problems in the global economy.

The company will also divest some real estate and cut back on office space. The goal of the plan is to reduce operating costs, increase operating margins and drive “profitable growth.”

Salefforce CRM, +3.57% joins a number of other tech companies that have admitted in recent months that they have grown too fast for the current environment.

“As our earnings accelerated during the pandemic, we hired too many people, leading to the economic downturn we now face, and I take responsibility for that,”

co-CEO Mark Benioff said in a letter to employees that was also filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

On investor day in September, the company had about 80,000 employees.

Salesforce expects that it will incur $1.4-2.1 billion in expenses related to the plan, of which $800-1 billion is expected to be incurred in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, which is underway. The majority of the total expected spending is related to employee transition, layoffs, employee benefits or stock-based compensation, Market Watch writes.

The company anticipates that it will be done with the staffing elements of the restructuring plan by the end of fiscal 2024 and done with the real-estate efforts during fiscal 2026.

Mizuho’s Jordan Klein, a desk-based analyst associated with the sales team and not the research unit, said in a note that the restructuring was a positive step toward helping to “rebuild investor credibility and trust and one that showed that Benioff “is not all about growth at any cost.