Google parent Alphabet is reducing its global recruiting team by laying off employees as the company slows down its hiring process. The decision to let go of a few hundred employees is not part of a large-scale layoff, and a significant majority of the team will be retained for hiring critical roles. Alphabet will also assist the affected workers in finding employment opportunities within the company or elsewhere.
Alphabet’s layoffs make it the first “Big Tech” company to downsize this quarter, following similar actions by peers like Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon. The weak economy brought an end to their pandemic-driven hiring sprees in 2023. In January, Alphabet, based in California, cut about 12,000 jobs, reducing its workforce by 6%.
According to a report by employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, layoffs in the U.S. increased by more than threefold in August compared to July and nearly fourfold compared to the same period last year. Economists polled by Reuters had predicted an 8% rise in new claims for state unemployment benefits in the week ending September 9, following a decrease of 13,000 to 216,000 in the previous seven-day period.
