Google is laying off 12,000 workers, becoming the latest tech company to trim staff after rapid expansions during the COVID-19 pandemic have worn off.
The tech giant has a big and growing footprint in the Triangle and North Carolina, from an engineering hub in Durham to a big data center in the western part of the state.
CEO Sundar Pichai shared the news Friday in an email to staff at the Silicon Valley giant that was also posted on the company’s news blog.
Google’s ‘difficult news:’ CEO explains big job cuts in his own words
“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth,” Pichai wrote. “To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”
He said the layoffs reflect a “rigorous review” carried out by Google of its operations.
The jobs being eliminated “cut across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions,” Pichai said.
Earlier this week, Microsoft announced 10,000 job cuts, or nearly 5% of its workforce. Amazon is cutting 18,000 jobs and Facebook parent Meta is shedding 11,000 positions.
