The largest round of layoffs in Google's history led to the loss of over 1,800 jobs in its home state of California.
Google, which is owned by Alphabet, announced on Friday that it was laying off 12,000 workers, or about 6% of its full-time workforce. Around 1,845 posts, or 15% of the layoffs, were in California, according to documents made public by the state.
In an email sent to the company's workforce on Friday, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and parent company Alphabet, announced that the company will start making layoffs in the U.S. immediately.
According to the executive, the process in other countries "will take longer due to local laws and practices."
The majority of the job cuts in California occurred in and around the company's Silicon Valley headquarters. There were 1,436 job cuts in Mountain View, where Google is headquartered, and 119 in San Bruno, where YouTube is located. Palo Alto had 53 layoffs.
"Employee separations at the Facilities resulting from this action are expected to commence March 31, 2023," the filings read.
A Google representative explained that the March date was chosen to accommodate a California notification requirement. Employers are required to provide affected workers, as well as state and local representatives, with at least 60 days' written notice "of any plant closing or mass layoff" under the terms of WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act).
In its initial statement, Google promised to pay its American workers "during the full notification period (minimum 60 days)."
The words "director" or "senior" appeared in the titles of more than a quarter of the Bay Area occupations that were impacted. Around 27 in-house massage therapists were also let go, 24 of whom were in Mountain View and three in the Southern California markets of Los Angeles and Irvine.
In total, 177 layoffs were made in Los Angeles, the majority of which occurred at the company's Playa Vista site. In Irvine, there were 60 layoffs.
Rising interest rates and inflation over the last year have slashed technology shares and caused advertisers to cut back on online ad spending, among other issues for IT companies.
Amazon has begun a new round of layoffs, affecting around 18,000 people. Microsoft also revealed plans to lay off 10,000 employees.
Twitter, led by Elon Musk, has also made cuts, laying off more than half of its employees since taking over as CEO in October.
The U.S. Federal Reserve's increases in interest rates in particular have made investors less interested in American tech stocks. These businesses have been under increased pressure to make significant workforce reductions as a result of the dark macroeconomic environment.
