Around 100 members of staff employed by Alphabet are about to find themselves looking for new jobs, according to reports.
The layoffs are set to affect workers in Google’s cloud division, with the company claiming that the organizational changes are required in order to “invest in areas that are critical” to the business.
Less than two months in, 2025 has already proved a continuation of the turbulent time for Google’s workforce, following job cuts in each of the last two years.
Google’s Priority Changes
The latest round of cuts was initially reported by Bloomberg (paywalled), which was alerted to the news by ‘people familiar with the matter’ and had it confirmed by a Google spokesperson.
It was told by its anonymous sources that sales staff in Google’s cloud division would bear the brunt of the cuts, which are, Bloomberg says, “intended to free resources invest in the business and artificial intelligence”.
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In response to the claims, the company’s spokesperson told the website that adjustments were necessary in order to meet customer needs and take advantage of the “significant opportunity” presented by AI.
“As teams have been doing across the company, we’re making changes to continue to invest in areas that are critical to our business and ensure our long-term success.” – Google
Writing on the Wall for Alphabet Staff
The latest layoffs are unlikely to come as a major surprise to staff, with the company’s annual performance reviews currently taking place – only last month, more than a thousand Google employees signed a petition to save their jobs.
Organized by the Alphabet Workers Union and addressed directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, it cited concerns about ongoing job insecurity despite the company’s strong financial position. It also requested changes to company policy around how performance ratings are calculated, guaranteed severance, and prioritizing voluntary layoffs over forced redundancies.
The company reacted no more than a week later by offering a first round of voluntary buyouts to US-based staff in its hardware and platform teams; a move that was seen by some as an indication of further layoffs to come.
Layoffs and More Layoffs
This is by no means the first time that ‘Google’ and ‘job cuts’ have appeared together in the same story over the last couple of years.
During a swathe of post-pandemic job cuts made by big tech companies, Alphabet announced plans to lay off 6% of its workforce in January 2023 – a figure representing around 12,000 individuals.
That was followed a year later when two rounds of redundancies were made by Google. First, hundreds of employees were released from engineering, hardware and Google Assistant divisions. Then, shortly afterwards, around 1,000 in its AR, Pixel, Nest and Fitbit teams got news that their jobs were no more.
Alphabet and Google are, of course, not alone in their drive to reduce their workforce. The sheer amount of tech companies that have made layoffs from 2022 to 2025 is well documented, with the likes of Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft all shedding thousands of staff between them over the last few years.
