JAKARTA - Google's parent company, Alphabet, has surprisingly cut off employment (PHK) for all its employees globally.
In an internal memo originally shared with Google employees and then posted on the company's official blog, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed the decision would affect more than 12,000 Google employees worldwide.
It is estimated that the company will lay off nearly 6 percent of Google's global workforce. All employees affected in the United States (US) have been notified of changes to their work status.
However, the process is expected to take longer for Google employees outside the US, given the complexities associated with international labor laws.
Unfortunately, Google did not reveal which company division was affected by the latest layoffs. But a lot of news circulated, these layoffs affected teams across the company, such as company staff, recruiters, and members of the product and engineering teams.
Affected employees will be paid for an entire 60-day notification period, and the severance package also includes a 16-week salary, plus two weeks for each additional year on Google.
In addition, Google will also pay all the maturing bonuses in 2022, and employees can cash out the remaining time of their vacation. This is an addition of six months of health care and immigration support for employees affected by Visa.
Pichai admits that he regrets having to let go of some of the company's most talented employees.
"The fact that this change will affect Googler's life is very burdensome for me, and I take full responsibility for the decision that brought us here," Pichai said on the company's official blog quoted Saturday, January 21.
Pichai admits Google has seen a dramatic period of growth in the last two years, and decided to step up recruitment efforts to drive the growth.
Even so, given the world is facing a very different economic reality right now, it seems the company was forced to let go of some people.
Pichai added that now the 25-year-old Google will definitely go through a difficult economic cycle. Times like this will only help them sharpen their long-term focus on new technology.
Launching Slashgear, Google's decision was taken one day after technology giant Microsoft announced it would release more than 10,000 of its global workforce.
Google and Microsoft are the latest additions to the long list of tech giants that have announced mass layoffs.
The series of technology layoffs began with Twitter releasing more than 50 percent of its global employees in October 2022. Shortly after Twitter layoffs, Meta announced the same thing, where they released more than 13 percent of its workforce, a total of 11,000 employees.
Lastly, Amazon, which cut its 18,000 employees, was followed by layoffs on cellphones affecting more than 34,000 employees.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
