Google layoffs reach Indian shores, nearly 500 employees sacked late Thursday

• Google parent Alphabet has laid off nearly 500 people in India across legal, sales, marketing and other departments.
  
• The laid off employees were locked out of their work systems around 9:20 p.m. on Thursday.
  
• The layoffs have been carried out across departments and sources told Business Insider India that non-performing employees have also been put on notice.
  

Google parent Alphabet has laid off nearly 500 people in India across legal, sales, marketing and other departments. The laid off employees were locked out of their work systems at around 9:20 p.m. on Thursday and they were informed on their personal email, sources told Business Insider India.

The layoffs at Google India were expected after the search giant axed 12,000 jobs or 6% of its workforce in January. While Google did not specify exactly how many employees are impacted in India, sources told Business Insider India that India accounts for nearly 500 of the axed jobs announced by Google in January.

“This evening, we notified all Googlers in India whose roles have been impacted, as part of the workforce reductions announced in January. Managers will soon receive details of their impacted team members,” Google India’s country head Sanjay Gupta wrote in his email to employees.

As part of its assistance plans for the impacted employees, Google India said that severance packages will be “personal and based on factors like length of service”, according to an internal memo seen by Business Insider India.

In addition to this, impacted employees will also receive the remaining bonuses of 2022 and accrued but unused vacation time. The company also said it will provide assistance towards healthcare insurance and job placement services, among other things.

Google joins a growing list of big tech companies that are cutting jobs. The others include Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Twitter, all of whom have slashed thousands of jobs in the last few weeks. According to Layoffs.fyi, a layoff tracker, 379 tech companies around the world have announced 1,07,930 job cuts around the world in 2023 alone.

‘Feeling of job security is gone’

A feeling of uncertainty has gripped Google India employees – sources told Business Insider India that the company has put employees on notice, saying that non-performance will be dealt with.

But more than that, employees who Business Insider India spoke to said that Google should have done better in terms of hiring to avoid this mess in the first place.

“I feel it (retrenchment) is unnecessary. Hiring could have been streamlined and voluntary exits could have made a similar impact,” a Google India employee told Business Insider India on the condition of anonymity.

“Feeling of job security is gone. There is a lot of uncertainty. Most of us were just processing the news of US layoffs. People had just started working with the right mindset and this happened,” another employee added.

The laid off Google India employees have started posting on LinkedIn. Kamal Dave, an account manager at Google India’s Gurugram office, said that he has been laid off, and that he was a part of the marketing department.

Jyotish Bhaskar, a software engineer at Google, said while he has not been laid off, said the uncertainty has been “painful”.

“I have been closely observing this situation and the uncertainty over the past 4-5 weeks has been painful. It's disheartening to see how many talented individuals have been affected,” Bhaskar said in a post.

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