Google Parent Company to Cut 12k jobs

Facts

• On Friday, Google's parent company Alphabet announced that it will be cutting roughly 12k jobs, or 6% of its work force.
• This is set to be the company's largest-ever round of layoffs, and follows job cuts at other technology companies in recent months, including at Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
• CEO Sundar Pichai announced the layoffs in a memo to Google employees. He cited the economy as the reason for the cuts saying, "we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today."
• Impacted US employees will receive at least 16-weeks salary in severance as well as their 2022 bonus, paid vacations and six months of health coverage.
• The layoffs are expected to span across the company, impacting many different product areas, functions, levels and regions. The company also owns YouTube and the Android mobile operating system.

Sources: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NBC, BBC News, and Guardian.

Narratives

• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by BBC News. The recent layoffs in the tech sector highlight these companies' irresponsible hypergrowth. Following the pandemic, tech companies like Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft hired in great numbers at an unsustainable pace and now a change in the economy is causing them to layoff many employees to rectify their mistakes.
• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Reuters. There are many reasons why the company needs to cut jobs, not just post-pandemic over-hiring. Ad growth has slowed, and the company is facing competitive and regulatory threats. The tech sector is not immune to economic turbulence and recent recession fears are impacting many industries. While these layoffs are unfortunate, they are not entirely the company's fault.