AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT APHABET / GOOGLE (09/16/24)

Am I Next? Google to recind previous job offers to agency-recruited contractors, vendors, and temps.

SEPTEMBER 16, 2024 -- HUNDREDS TARGETED

The company plans to lay off hundreds of employees on its voice assistant, hardware and engineering teams.

A company spokesperson noted, "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 organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally."

JANUARY 19, 2024 — YOUTUBE LAYOFFS

Google is continuing its efficiency and cost-containment initiatives and is laying off 100 YouTube employees who support content creators.

YouTube’s chief business officer, Mary Ellen Coe, noted, “We’ve made the decision to eliminate some roles and say goodbye to some of our teammates.”

“As we’ve said, we’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead. To best position us for these opportunities, 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 organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally.”

JANUARY 17, 2024 — “HUNDREDS” IN ADVERTISING SALES TEAM TARGETED

Continuing restructuring has cost several hundred advertising sales team members their jobs.

According to Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler, “Sadly though, we will have to say goodbye to many highly talented and amazing sales colleagues. There’s no easy or best way to do this, but I’ve asked designated leaders to communicate personally with impacted folks. While I’m confident we’re doing the right thing for our customers, partners, and, ultimately, our business, this will be very hard for many, especially across our LCS teams. Going forward GCS will be our core channel for scaling growth by dynamically delivering the right treatment to every customer — while LCS will focus on transformational growth for our largest, most sophisticated customers."

JANUARY 12, 2024 — GOOGLE CONFIRMS LAYOFFS

It appears that Google has laid off 1,000+ employees as it switches to a functional organization model where one team will be responsible for hardware engineering across key business lines.

Google confirmed that it’s eliminated “a few hundred” roles in each of the separate hardware teams responsible for Pixel, Nest, and Fitbit products, and eliminating a similar number of roles on its knowledge and information product teams, including its core engineering and voice-activated Google Assistant software team.

Estimates put the layoffs at 1,000+ employees.

SEPTEMBER 16, 2023 — HUNDREDS OF RECRUITERS TARGETED

In addition to the previous lays offs, Google has confirmed it will be laying off additional hundreds of employees in its global recruitment teams.

JANUARY 20, 2023 — 12,000 EMPLOYEES TARGETED FOR LAYOFF

Google's parent company Alphabet has announced it's cutting 12,000 jobs or 6 percent of its workforce.

Googlers,

I have some difficult news to share. We've decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles. We've already sent a separate email to employees in the US who are affected. In other countries, this process will take longer due to local laws and practices.

This will mean saying goodbye to some incredibly talented people we worked hard to hire and have loved working with. I'm deeply sorry for that. The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.

Over the past two years we've seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.

I am confident about the huge opportunity in front of us thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI. To fully capture it, we'll need to make tough choices. So, we've undertaken a rigorous review across product areas and functions to ensure that our people and roles are aligned with our highest priorities as a company. The roles we're eliminating reflect the outcome of that review. They cut across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions.

To the Googlers who are leaving us: Thank you for working so hard to help people and businesses everywhere. Your contributions have been invaluable and we are grateful for them.

While this transition won't be easy, we're going to support employees as they look for their next opportunity.

As an almost 25-year-old company, we're bound to go through difficult economic cycles. These are important moments to sharpen our focus, reengineer our cost base, and direct our talent and capital to our highest priorities.

Being constrained in some areas allows us to bet big on others. Pivoting the company to be AI-first years ago led to groundbreaking advances across our businesses and the whole industry.

Thanks to those early investments, Google's products are better than ever. And we're getting ready to share some entirely new experiences for users, developers and businesses, too. We have a substantial opportunity in front of us with AI across our products and are prepared to approach it boldly and responsibly.

All this work is a continuation of the "healthy disregard for the impossible" that's been core to our culture from the beginning. When I look around Google today, I see that same spirit and energy driving our efforts. That's why I remain optimistic about our ability to deliver on our mission, even on our toughest days. Today is certainly one of them.

MARCH 5, 2022 — GOOGLE LAYS OFF DOZENS OF GOOGLE CLOUD SUPPORT EMPLOYEES

Google has announced a restructuring of its Google Cloud operations and is outsourcing support functions to third-party vendors and laying off technical solutions engineers (mostly help desk representatives).

The layoffs impact support engineers in California, Texas, Zurich, and Australia.

DECEMBER 20, 2020 — ACTIFLO ACQUISITION COMPLETE, 54 LAYOFFS IN WALTHAM, MASSACHUSETTS

The company has announced that it will be permanently laying off 54 employees at the recently acquired backup and recovery software company, Actifio Inc., located in Waltham. Massachusetts. The layoffs will become effective on February 15, 2021. Actiflo is now part of the Google Cloud initiative.

JUNE 3, 2020 — Original post…

Mountain View, California-based Google, the iconic internet services and technology company, is responding to a significant decline in advertising revenues brought about the reduction in consumer spending and its impact on commercial advertising. Rather than affect current permanent employees, Google has decided to rescind employment offers to thousands of temps, vendors and contractors, mostly hired by third-party agencies.

In a notice to agencies who recruit and employ contractors, “We’re slowing our pace of hiring and investment, and are not bringing on as many new starters as we had planned at the beginning of the year and will not be moving forward to onboard the people that the agencies had already recruited for positions at Google.”

While many permanent employees are highly paid and have excellent benefits, contractors from third-party agencies generally receive lower salaries, fewer benefits, and have little or no job protection. Essentially Google has insulated themselves from the legal ecumberances of an unlawfyl termination.

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT HAAGEN DAZS

Am I Next? Temporary Layoffs at Haagen-Dazs,

In an example of seasonal staffing, Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Häagen-Dazs has announced that it will be responding to the winter-months slow down in ice cream sales by “temporarily” laying off 1,000 employees for a period of slowing production. The two California plants that are most affected are located in Tulare and Bakersfield, California. While ice cream sales are down, year-to-year, it appears that shifting consumer buying patterns towards lighter frozen yogurt may also be impacting decisions. There is nothing new about this practice and it mirrors last year’s similar layoff.

Another illustration of why workers need to seriously consider a side-hustle in this gig economy to develop multiple independent streams of revenue to compensate for disruptions in their primary income stream.

It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere ... are you wondering, Am I Next?