Google announced a new plan to cut thousands of employees just days in the wake of the White House choosing to outright dismiss concerns about the layoffs sweeping throughout the technology sector.
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, sent out a memo to the company late last week that close to 12,000 positions would end up being cut due to the effects of macroeconomic turmoil. The layoffs will end up affecting close to 6% of the company’s total workforce of close to 187,000.
“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today. I am confident about the huge opportunity in front of us thanks to the strength of our mission,” Pichai stated in the release. “To fully capture it, we’ll need to make tough choices. So, we’ve undertaken a rigorous review across product areas and functions to ensure that our people and roles are aligned with our highest priorities as a company. The roles we’re eliminating reflect the outcome of that review.”
This news was made public just after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled the plan from the company in which it would dismiss close to 10,000 employees and just a few weeks after Amazon CEO Andy Jassy also revealed that they would be cutting their workforce by roughly 18,000 employees. Technology companies have collectively dropped employee counts by 90,000 this past year, as reported by an analysis from CrunchBase.
“As an almost 25-year-old company, we’re bound to go through difficult economic cycles,” explained Pichai. “These are important moments to sharpen our focus, reengineer our cost base, and direct our talent and capital to our highest priorities.”
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House Press Secretary, quickly chose to deflect all of the questions from journalists this past Wednesday on the subject of the tech sector layoffs. One reporter from the group highlighted the Old Uncle Joe has seemed “quite optimistic” in his most recent statements concerning the economy and asked whether or not the layoffs from Microsoft are a “matter of concern” for the administration. Jean-Pierre issued a response by stating that the commander-in-chief watches very closely “anytime there are reports of Americans losing their jobs.”
“I don’t have a comment on specific moves announced by particular companies. As you know, we’re very careful from here talking about private companies. But more broadly speaking, layoffs remain near record lows according to job openings data,” she concluded. “Companies across the economy are continuing to grow and invest in the United States.”
