Google Layoffs Begin In India, Over 450 Employees Asked To Leave

As per recent reports, Google India has laid off 453 employees across various departments, and those affected were sent emails notifying them about their termination. This news follows the parent company, Alphabet's announcement last month of cutting 12,000 employees or 6% of its workforce globally. While it is unclear if the Indian layoffs are part of the 12,000 job cuts, the mail sent by Sanjay Gupta, Country Head and Vice President of Google India, reportedly included inputs from Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. In his note to laid-off employees, Pichai had promised support in line with local practices.

According to sources, the layoffs mainly affected employees who were into dotted-line reporting or those who did not have any direct managers. Reports suggest that many employees in Hyderabad and Bangalore working as level four software developers, backend developers, cloud engineers, and digital marketers were the ones who were laid off. Some Google India employees have started posting about the layoffs on LinkedIn, including Kamal Dave, account manager at Google's Gurugram office, who stated that roles in the digital marketing goals were cut. Another employee, Saptak Mohanta, Program Manager at Google, said he was gutted to lose many colleagues and friends due to the layoffs in Singapore and India.

Google is not the only tech giant to resort to layoffs. Amazon has planned to lay off 18,000 employees, and Meta has let go of 13,000 employees. Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, took responsibility for the layoffs, stating that the company had been bullish with hiring during and before the pandemic. In line with the trend, Alphabet announced its plans to cut 12,000 jobs last month, joining other tech companies in scaling back operations amid a weakening global economy and rising inflation. Not just these, but dozens of other tech companies have announced mass global layoffs.

The layoffs in Google India and other tech companies globally are a result of the current global economic situation. However, the abrupt and impersonal manner in which the layoff news was conveyed to employees through emails has come under criticism. While these events may create uncertainty and affect the livelihoods of employees, the employees hope that the industry and its stakeholders will take steps to help affected employees find new jobs.