Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, is set to cut 12,000 jobs globally in light of the current global economic slowdown.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai informed staff of the job cuts in a memo, stating, "I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here." Those decisions include rapidly expanding headcount over the past few years, "for a different economic reality than the one we face today."
The job losses will be spread across recruiting, engineering, and product teams, but some corporate positions are set to disappear, too, Reuters reports. US cuts will happen "immediately" with more set to come from Alphabet's other locations around the world.
The announcement follows Microsoft's decision to cut 10,000 jobs earlier this week and Amazon confirming up to 18,000 job cuts earlier this month. Meta cut 11,000 jobs last year.
Alphabet will pay affected employees 16 weeks of severance and provide six months of health benefits in the US. That same offer will be tweaked to match local laws and practices in other areas of the world.
In his memo, Pichai says "I am confident about the huge opportunity in front of us thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI."
Like many tech companies, Alphabet grew its headcount throughout the pandemic. For the quarter ending March 31, 2020, just as COVID-19 restrictions began, Alphabet had just over 123,000 employees. By Sept. 30, 2021 it was at 150,000 and in October, it reported just under 187,000 employees for Q3 2022.
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