News Desk
ISLAMABAD/CALIFORNIA: Google’s parent Alphabet Inc has announced to cut around 12,000 jobs worldwide as it faced “a different economic reality”, it said in a memo, strengthening artificial intelligence (AI) and axing staff members who mostly support experimental projects.
Job cut by Alphabet
The job cuts by Alphabet will affect 6 per cent of its workforce, which follows thousands of layoffs by tech giants, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms that announced downsizing after a pandemic-led hiring spree virtually left them in a weak economy.
Shares in Mountain View, California-based Alphabet, that boosted its workforce by almost a third through 2020 and 2021, rose 4 per cent on Friday. The shares had fallen 30 per cent in the past 12 months, echoing a 24 per cent slump in the broader tech industry.
Sundar Pichai, who is Alphabet’s boss since 2019, said in the memo that he took “full responsibility” for the important decisions that led to the firing.
Pichai, whose pay was recently tied more closely to his performance, said this was a moment to sharpen their focus, re-engineer their cost base and direct their talent and capital to their highest priorities as the tech company looked to get imbue its products with more AI, echoing comments from Microsoft that announced job cuts earlier.
Alphabet, long a leader in artificial intelligence, was facing competition from Microsoft, which was reportedly looking to boost its stake in ChatGPT, a promising chatbot that answers queries with human-like responses.
Advertising dollars, Alphabet’s mainstay revenue source, meanwhile, was feeling the crush from businesses chopping budgets as consumers pulled back spending.
Susannah Streeter, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said that it was clear that Alphabet was not immune from the harsh economic backdrop, with worries about a United States recession growing.
