Google Lays Off 200 in Core Unit as Reorganization Continues

Google has reportedly reorganized its Core unit, which builds the technical foundation behind the company’s products.

The reorganization included the layoffs of at least 200 employees and the shifting of some roles to India and Mexico, CNBC reported Wednesday (May 1).

“As we’ve said, we’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC. “A number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities.”

Google made the layoffs before its April 25 earnings report, according to the CNBC report.

The company’s Core teams include technical units from information technology, the Python developer team, technical infrastructure, security foundation, app platforms, core developers and engineering roles, the report said.

Teams involved with Google’s developer tools were among those involved in the reorganization. Google is streamlining its developer tools as it adds more artificial intelligence (AI) to the products, per the report.

CNBC reported April 23 that Google is reducing the number of layers of management while also planning to build teams in India, Brazil and other key markets to get closer to its customers.

Prabhakar Raghavan, senior vice president at Google responsible for search, assistant, geo, ads, commerce and payments products, told employees in March that the company aims to move faster and get closer to its customers as it meets “systemic” challenges, according to the report.

Asked by CNBC to comment on Raghavan’s address, a Google spokesperson said: “With a huge opportunity ahead, we’re moving with velocity and focus.”

On April 17, Reuters reported that Google was laying off an unspecified number of employees and shifting some roles to other countries as part of a continuing effort to cut costs.

A Google spokesperson told Reuters at the time that the employees would be able to apply for other roles at the company and that some of the impacted roles would move to hubs in India, Chicago, Atlanta and Dublin.

“Throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities,” the spokesperson said, per the report.

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