On Friday, US internet giant Google began a wave of layoffs. The company announced that 12,000 employees would be dismissed, 6% of its workforce.
Google employees in Israel have not yet been notified of layoffs. Instead, the company’s 2,000 employees in the country received an email message from the management indicating that no decision had yet been made as to who would be dismissed. "A process will begin in which it will be decided what layoffs will be carried out, in accordance with assessment score and function," the message stated. It added that the management was trying to ensure that the process would be as short as possible and that as few employees as possible would be affected by the uncertainty. "Please try to support one another," the message said.
Where will Google Israel make cuts? Google has already carried out streamlining measures in the past few months, the most prominent one being the consolidation of the activity of navigation app Waze will the mapping products of the company in the Geo unit, which is responsible for Google Maps, Google Earth, and Street View. Neha Parikh, who replaced Noam Bardin as CEO of Waze, left Google in December. Although Google has repeatedly expressed its commitment to the company, its recent moves do not bode well for the Israeli app.
To judge from reports in the US, the layoffs are not just among new employees and recruitment staff, but also among experienced engineers and employees with high assessment scores. Engineers and other workers have been laid off from units such as Google Cloud, Chrome, Android, and the company’s search product, according to tech news website The Information. The layoffs among workers on the cloud product, which also has an important Israeli development team, have affected the strategy, recruitment, marketing, sales, and customer relations teams.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 21, 2023.
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