San Francisco, January 29: Google layoffs, hinted by CEO Sundar Pichai, would soon hit several employees this year as the tech giant focuses on the key areas of improvement. Now, Google employees have started a petition for "job security" as they anticipate the company will announce the job cuts soon. Last year, Pichai warned that the company would reduce its workforce to prioritise AI initiatives.
Reports said that the Google employees filed the petition amid the fear of losing their jobs due to the workforce reduction. The Google layoffs are expected to affect thousands of people in 2025 as a part of the company's cost-cutting measure and focus on artificial intelligence. According to a report by CNBC, over 1,250 employees signed the petition for job security at Google. NVIDIA Layoffs, GeForce RTX 50 Series Launch, DeepSeek R1 Impact US Stock Market; Check Details.
The report highlighted that these signatures suggested employee upheaval at Google, the tech giant that struggled to maintain high employee morale and had an embarrassing product rollout. The Google employee petition said, "We, the undersigned Google workers from offices across the US and Canada, are concerned about instability at Google that impacts our ability to do high quality, impactful work."
The petition said that the employees felt insecure about their jobs due to the ongoing rounds of Google layoffs. According to the petition, Google was "clearly" having a strong financial position, despite the fact it may announce the job cuts of thousands of employees without explaining the reasons. They said it was hurtful.
Google's new CFO, Anat Ashkenazi, said in October that cost-cutting would be one of the company's top priorities as it would expand its AI infrastructure in 2025. Her words sparked reactions among the employees who feared the potential Google layoffs in 2025, and they demanded more explanation for her plans. Ubisoft Layoffs: French Video Game Developer Known for Assassins Creed, Far Cry Series, To Lay Off 185 Employees Amid Restructuring, Close UK’s Ubisoft Leamington Studio.
The employee's petition called on Sundar Pichai to offer buyouts before announcing the Google job cuts to guarantee the laid-off employees severance pay. Google fired 12,000 employees in 2023, and company executives promised 16 weeks of salary plus two weeks for all additional years the employees worked. The petition asked for several equivalent severance to be considered for the upcoming Google layoffs.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 29, 2025 01:03 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).