{"id":26764,"date":"2024-05-02T04:02:21","date_gmt":"2024-05-02T09:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=26764"},"modified":"2024-05-02T04:02:29","modified_gmt":"2024-05-02T09:02:29","slug":"google-lays-off-hundreds-of-core-employees-moves-some-positions-to-india-and-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=26764","title":{"rendered":"Google lays off hundreds of ‘Core’ employees, moves some positions to India and Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Just ahead of its blowout first-quarter earnings report on April 25, Google<\/a> laid off at least 200 employees from its \u201cCore\u201d teams, in a reorganization that will include moving some roles to India and Mexico, CNBC has learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Core unit is responsible for building the technical foundation behind the company\u2019s flagship products and for protecting users\u2019 online safety, according to Google\u2019s website<\/a>. Core teams include key technical units from information technology, its Python developer team, technical infrastructure, security foundation, app platforms, core developers, and various engineering roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least 50 of the positions eliminated were in engineering at the company\u2019s offices in Sunnyvale, California, filings show. Many Core teams will hire corresponding roles in Mexico and India, according to internal documents viewed by CNBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asim Husain, vice president of Google Developer Ecosystem, announced news of the layoffs to his team in an email last week. He also spoke at a town hall and told employees that this was the biggest planned reduction for his team this year, an internal document shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe intend to maintain our current global footprint while also expanding in high-growth global workforce locations so that we can operate closer to our partners and developer communities,\u201d Husain wrote in the email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alphabet has been slashing headcount since early last year, when the company announced plans to eliminate about 12,000 jobs<\/a>, or 6% of its workforce, following a downturn in the online ad market. Even with digital advertising rebounding recently, Alphabet has continued downsizing, with layoffs across multiple organizations this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat announced<\/a> in mid-April that the company\u2019s finance department would undergo restructuring, entailing layoffs and moving positions to Bangalore and Mexico City. The company\u2019s search boss, Prabhakar Raghavan, told employees<\/a> at an all-hands meeting in March that Google plans to build teams closer to users in key markets, including India and Brazil, where labor is cheaper than in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest cuts come as the company enjoys its fastest growth rate since early 2022, alongside improving profit margins. Last week, Alphabet reported a 15% jump in first-quarter revenue from a year earlier and announced<\/a> its first-ever dividend and a $70 billion buyback.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnnouncements of this sort may leave many of you feeling uncertain or frustrated,\u201d Husain wrote in the email to developers. He added that his message to developers is that the changes \u201care in service of our broader goals\u201d as a company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The teams involved in the reorganization have been key to the company\u2019s developer tools, an area Google is streamlining as it incorporates more artificial intelligence into the products. In February, Google announced a major rebrand<\/a> of its chatbot from Bard to Gemini, the same name as the suit of AI models that power it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alphabet is gearing up for its annual developer conference, Google I\/O, on May 14, where the company traditionally reveals new developer products and tools underway during the prior year. Husain said in a memo explaining the developer changes that generative AI is at an \u201cinflection point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRecent advances in Generative AI across the industry, including Google\u2019s Gemini, are changing the very nature of software development as we know it,\u201d Husain wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a separate email, Pankaj Rohatgi, Google\u2019s security engineering vice president, told his team, \u201cIn order to optimize for our business goals, we are expanding work to other locations, which will result in some role eliminations and proposed role eliminations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Core layoffs also include the governance and protected data group, which will be at the center of regulatory challenges facing the company, particularly as lawmakers across the globe focus more on developments in AI. The European Union\u2019s Digital Markets Act, which went into effect in March<\/a>, aims to clamp down on anti-competitive practices in tech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evan Kotsovinos, Google\u2019s vice president of governance and protected data, addressed the upcoming changes last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kotsovinos in an email said the team\u2019s success means responding to \u201cescalating regulatory focus\u201d and is contingent on \u201cmoving faster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raghavan, Google\u2019s senior vice president overseeing search, recently referenced<\/a> heightened competition, a more challenging regulatory environment, and slower organic growth as the company\u2019s \u201cnew operating reality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When reached for comment, Google confirmed the Core reorganization and layoffs, and a spokesperson told CNBC that employees will be able to apply for open roles within Google and to access outplacement services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we\u2019ve said, we\u2019re responsibly investing in our company\u2019s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,\u201d the spokesperson said in an email. \u201cA number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just ahead of its blowout first-quarter earnings report on April 25, Google laid off at least 200 employees from its \u201cCore\u201d teams, in a reorganization that will include moving some roles to India and Mexico, CNBC has learned. The Core unit is responsible for building the technical foundation behind the company\u2019s flagship products and for protecting users\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":26765,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1155],"tags":[2581,3620,28169,1564,1638],"class_list":["post-26764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-google","tag-india","tag-job-transfers","tag-layoffs","tag-mexico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26766,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26764\/revisions\/26766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}