Tech Layoffs 2023 Live Updates: Google parent Alphabet to layoff 12,000 workers in 6% slash to global workforce

Job layoffs: January 2023

Amazon: The e-commerce company said it must cut about 18,000 positions. That's just a fraction of its 1.5 million-strong global workforce.

Salesforce: The company lays off 10% of its workforce, about 8,000 employees.

Coinbase: The cryptocurrency trading platform cuts approximately 20% of its workforce, or about 950 jobs, in a second round of layoffs in less than a year.

Microsoft: The software company said it will cut about 10,000 jobs, almost 5% of its workforce.

Google: The search engine giant becomes the most recent in the industry to say it must adjust, saying 12,000 workers, or about 6% of its workforce, would be let go.

Tech layoffs: November 2022

Twitter: About half of the social media platform’s staff of 7,500 was let go after it was acquired by the billionaire CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk.

Lyft: The ride-hailing service said it was cutting 13% of its workforce, almost 700 employees.

Meta: The parent company of Facebook laid off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce.

Layoff news: August 2022

Snap: The parent company of social media platform Snapchat said that it was letting go of 20% of its staff. Snap’s staff has grown to more than 5,600 employees in recent years and the company said at the time that even after laying off more than 1,000 people, its staff would be larger than it was a year earlier.

Robinhood: The company, whose app helped bring a new generation of investors to the market, announced that it would reduce headcount by about 23%, or approximately 780 people. An earlier round of layoffs last year cut 9% of its workforce.

Employee layoff: Tech industry job cuts come rapidly and in big numbers

In just the past month there have been nearly 50,000 job cuts across the technology sector. Large and small tech companies went on a hiring spree in over the past several years due to a demand for their products, software and services surged with millions of people working remotely.

Tech layoffs in US: According to tech site Layoffs.fyi, nearly 194,000 industry employees have lost their jobs in the US since the beginning of 2022, not including those announced by Alphabet on Friday.

Hewlett Packard and cloud computing giant Salesforce also announced major cuts this month as rampant inflation and rising interest rates have slowed growth.

The gloomy outlook for global economy in 2023 has pushed several Big Tech firms and Wall Street titans to lay off staff across offices worldwide. A string of tech companies like Microsoft, Twitter, Meta were already in the grasp of this layoff wave. On Friday, Google parent company Alphabet began the latest firm to join the list of IT giants to opt for job cuts.

Job layoffs in US: Wall Street welcomed the cuts

Alphabet shares rose by 3.5 percent in electronic trading before the stock market opened. This tracked the effect of job cuts on other tech giants, with Meta's share price up 35 percent since it announced 11,000 job cuts on November 9 and Amazon's stock was up 13 percent since 18,000 people were let go earlier this month.

Layoff news: Google's world-dominating search engine has found itself under pressure with the emergence of ChatGPT, a Microsoft-backed chatbot that can generate elaborate, human-like content in just seconds.

Microsoft has said the technology will be used to strengthen Bing, the longtime rival to Google search. Pichai announced severance packages for US employees, who will receive at least 16 weeks of salary, their 2022 bonus, paid vacations and six months of health coverage.

Tech layoffs 2023: The cuts follow a major hiring spree during the height of the coronavirus pandemic when companies scrambled to meet demand as people went online for work, school and entertainment.

Alphabet employed nearly 187,000 workers worldwide at the end of September 2022. The cuts represent a little over 6 percent of its total workforce. Pichai said American employees have already been notified about the cuts while reductions in other countries will take longer due to local labor laws.

Employee layoff: Facebook parent is cutting 11,000 jobs

The first major round of layoffs in the social-media company’s history. Meta’s stock has plunged in the past year, and the company is trying to pare costs following several quarters of disappointing earnings and a slide in revenue. The reductions equal about 13% of the workforce, and Meta will extend its hiring freeze through the first quarter.

Microsoft joins wave of tech layoffs as slowdown spreads

Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday it will cut 10,000 jobs this year, or about 5% of its workforce, which will result in a $1.2 billion charge in the fiscal second quarter. Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said in a blog post and internal email to employees that the company will continue to hire in “key strategic areas.” Nadella, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said the tech industry needs to adjust to the broader economic slowdown.

Tech layoffs US: Tech firms, Wall Street lead job cuts in corporate America

Big Tech firms and Wall Street titans are leading a string of layoffs across corporate America as companies look to rein in costs to ride out the economic downturn. Rapid interest rate hikes, weak consumer demand and an economic slowdown in China have forced firms such as Amazon, Walt Disney, Facebook-owner Meta and American banks to trim their workforce.

Layoff news: 'Bound to go through difficult economic cycles'

“These are important moments to sharpen our focus, reengineer our cost base, and direct our talent and capital to our highest priorities,” Pichai wrote. There will be job cuts in the US and in other unspecified countries, according to Pichai’s letter. The tech industry has been forced to freeze hiring and cut jobs “as the clock has struck midnight on hyper growth and digital advertising headwinds are on the horizon,” Wedbush Securities analysts Dan Ives, Taz Koujalgi and John Katsingris wrote Friday.

Tech news 2023: Apple appeals investigation by UK competition watchdog

Technology giant Apple has filed an appeal against an investigation by Britain's competition watchdog into the dominance of its mobile browsers in the cloud gaming market. Last November, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Britain's competition regulator, launched a full investigation into cloud gaming and mobile browsers on concerns about restrictions by iPhone-maker Apple and Google.

Layoff news: The layoffs reflect a 'rigorous review' carried out by Google of its operations.

In a regulatory filing late last year, the company said that it employed nearly 187,000 people. Pichai said that Google, founded nearly a quarter of a century ago, was “bound to go through difficult economic cycles.”

Tech layoffs 2023: In November, the 52,771 cuts, for a total of 80,978 over the course of the year, according to consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Tech layoffs 2023: The tech industry is slashing jobs at a pace nearing the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tech layoffs 2023: Faltering global economy and soaring inflation causing massive job cuts

Google joins a host of other tech giants that have drastically scaled back operations amid a faltering global economy and soaring inflation. Meta Platforms Inc., Twitter Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have all slashed their ranks.

Alphabet shares have fallen about 30% over the past year.

Shares of Alphabet gained as much as 1.8% during premarket trading in New York on Friday after the announcement was made public.

Undertaken a rigorous review across product areas, says Pichai

"We've undertaken a rigorous review across product areas and functions to ensure that our people and roles are aligned with our highest priorities as a company," Pichai wrote in email to staff.

Google employees layoff: What Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said

"We've decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles," Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees, adding the cuts were in response to "a different economic reality than the one we face today".

Global economic outlook to blame?

The news comes during a period of economic uncertainty as well as technological promise, in which Google and Microsoft have been investing in a burgeoning area of software known as generative artificial intelligence.

Google employees layoff: Alphabet has already emailed affected employees. The process will take longer in other countries due to local employment laws and practices.

Google employees layoff: Alphabet job cuts to affect across teams

Alphabet's job losses affect teams across the company including recruiting and some corporate functions, as well as some engineering and products teams.

Job layoffs: The job cuts at Google comes days after rival Microsoft Corp said it would lay off 10,000 workers.

In its latest round of job cuts, Google's parent Alphabet is eliminating about 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, the company said on Friday.