Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) cut several hundred jobs across the company late Wednesday night as it continues to push for efficiency and focus on its “biggest product priorities.”
The layoffs will impact employees within Google’s hardware and central engineering teams, as well as workers across Google Assistant, its voice-activated software product. Other parts of the company were also affected, according to Google.
Shares of Alphabet, which owns Google, closed down less than 1% on Thursday. They began trading up 52 cents to $142.60 Friday.
The announcement marks the latest cost-cutting effort at Google as it works to rein in the dramatic headcount growth it pursued during the pandemic. Last January, Google slashed its workforce by 12,000 people, or roughly 6% of its full-time employees. The company made other cuts to its recruiting and news divisions later in the year.
Google has also shifted its focus to prioritize developments in areas like artificial intelligence, launching products like the chatbot Bard and the large language model Gemini as it races to keep up with competitors like Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).
Google also made significant cuts to diversity, equity and inclusion programs last year, the media was told.
The Alphabet Workers Union expressed disappointment about the latest round of layoffs at Google in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, late Wednesday, calling them “needless.”
