Google will eliminate more than 700 Bay Area jobs across several departments, the search giant announced Thursday, describing them as “role eliminations” linked to product initiatives.
In a statement to The Standard, a spokesperson said the company was “responsibly investing in our company's biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead. To best position us for these opportunities, 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.”
As reported in Semafor and 9to5, the company’s central engineering, knowledge and information product, and devices and services teams had hundreds of cuts each, as well as its Assistant product, which it said in a separate statement will lose some features later in January.
READ MORE: San Francisco Gaming Giant Cuts 1,800 Jobs
Accordingly, some teams were “continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally. We’re continuing to support any impacted employees as they look for new roles here at Google and beyond.”
Google’s parent company Alphabet carried out a larger round of layoffs last January, citing hiring practices’ need to align with economic changes, and in September, pointing to declines in referrals from recruiters and shifts within its Waze and News products. A security company that serves several Google work sites in the Bay Area laid off more than 300 workers in December.
Who’s Getting Laid Off?
When asked, the Google spokesperson declined to specify which of this week’s cuts would affect work addresses in San Francisco or the Bay Area.
But according to several WARN documents filed with the state employment department and obtained Thursday by The Standard, the layoffs were slated to hit 703 employees at Bay Area addresses. Those documents did not break out specific departments within Google.
In one letter filed Dec. 8, Google said it planned to cease operations at the Google's Children's Center at the Woods at 325 Gladys Ave. in Mountain View, with 73 employees losing their jobs starting Aug. 9. Sixty-four of those roles were listed as teachers, with the rest as managers or specialists at a child care center.
In one letter dated Wednesday, 364 employees at 13 separate addresses on Charleston Road, Amphitheatre Parkway, Crittenden Lane and Stierlin Court in Mountain View that are part of the company’s Googleplex headquarters were slated to permanently lose jobs between March 10 and Aug. 29.
In another letter dated Wednesday, 105 employees were set to lose jobs between March 10 and May 26, 2024. An updated filing was linked to four San Francisco Google offices at 55 Spear St., 215 Fremont St., 1 Market St. and 345 Spear Street.
A third letter dated Wednesday listed 161 employees at three addresses each, also on Crossman Avenue and Humboldt Court in Sunnyvale, losing jobs on March 10, 2024.
The majority of positions listed in the San Francisco, Sunnyvale and Mountain View locations appeared to be various kinds of software engineers or senior software engineers.