Tech giant Google has laid off hundreds of workers in multiple divisions in cost-cutting measures, the company has announced.
According to Reuters, Google will lay off hundreds at its Voice Assistant unit, while a few hundred roles are being eliminated in the hardware team responsible for Pixel, Nest and Fitbit, with the majority of people in the augmented reality (AR) team being let go.
It said the company announced that hundreds of roles in the central engineering team will also be affected.
"Throughout the second half of 2023, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, and to align their resources to their biggest product priorities. Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organisational changes, which include some role eliminations globally," a spokesperson for Google told Reuters in a statement.
According to the New York Times, “several hundred” workers from the core engineering team were sent notices about being laid off.
The devices and services team that designs Google’s smartphones, smartwatches, and fitness trackers also saw “restructuring”.
A Google spokesperson told Forbes that the layoffs were part of organizational changes the company was making “to become more efficient and work better, and to align their resources to their biggest product priorities.”
The statement added that the company will “support any impacted employees as they look for new roles here at Google and beyond.”
