Google layoffs: Sundar Pichai announced 10% job cuts in managerial roles

Google's decision to cut down on manager, director, and VP roles over the past two years was part of a broader restructuring strategy to push for efficiency

Google has cut 10 per cent of its managerial positions, including directors and vice-presidents in its yearlong push for efficiency. Chief executive Sundar Pichai confirmed the decision during an all-hands meeting, underscoring the company’s ongoing efforts to streamline operations amidst growing competition from AI-focused rivals like OpenAI, which increasingly challenge Google’s dominance in search, reported Business Insider.

 

Pichai said, workforce restructuring efforts over the past two years was intended to streamline the company and make it more efficient, according to two employees of Google.

 

The company’s cost-cutting push began in 2022, when Pichai announced the goal to make Google 20 per cent more efficient. The restructuring led to a historic round of layoffs in January 2023, with 12,000 employees losing their jobs.

 

Redefining ‘Googleyness’ 

At the same meeting, Pichai introduced a refined vision for ‘Googleyness’, a term that once broadly defined the traits of an ideal Google employee but had grown too ambiguous. Pichai reimagined it with a sharper focus on mission-driven work, innovation, and teamwork.

 

He emphasised the importance of creating helpful products, taking bold risks, fostering a scrappy attitude, and collaborating effectively. “Updating modern Google,” as Pichai described it, is now central to the company’s ethos.

Job cuts and restructuring trend 

Google’s decision reflects a larger trend sweeping through the tech industry. With rapid advancements in AI and economic pressures, tech giants are cutting jobs and reducing middle management to empower individual contributors.

 

The scale of layoffs across the sector is staggering. In the first half of 2024 alone, over 98,000 employees from 333 tech companies were let go, according to Layoffs.fyi. In May alone, 39 companies collectively laid off nearly 10,000 workers.

Other tech giants follow suit 

Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and TikTok have also been aggressively restructuring. Microsoft reportedly laid off over 1,000 employees across divisions, including Azure cloud and gaming, following its Activision Blizzard acquisition. The gaming division alone saw 1,900 job cuts.

 

Amazon also trimmed its workforce across several units, including Audible, Prime Video, and Twitch, which lost 35 per cent of its staff, or roughly 500 employees.

 

TikTok reduced its global workforce by over 1,000 employees, impacting operations and marketing teams amidst regulatory challenges. Meta enacted smaller cuts within its Reality Lab division, which focuses on metaverse and AR/VR projects.

 

Meanwhile, companies like Toshiba and Indeed have also implemented significant layoffs. Toshiba announced plans to cut 4,000 domestic jobs, while Indeed let go of 8 per cent of its workforce during its second wave of layoffs in May.