Google India fires 453 employees; CEO Sundar Pichai writes to laid-off employees

Google India has reportedly sacked 453 employees across various departments. The employees were informed of their termination through mail. The sackings were said to have taken place late at night on Thursday.

According to a report by businessline, the mail was sent by Sanjay Gupta, Country Head and Vice President of Google India. Last month Alphabet Inc announced that the parent company of Google, would be firing 12,000 employees or 6 per cent of its total headcount globally. It is yet to be confirmed if the 453 layoffs include the 12,000 job cuts or if there has been a new round of layoffs. 

The report suggests that the mail also included some inputs from Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. He agreed to take full responsibility for the decisions that led the company to layoffs. In the note sent out by Google CEO Sundar Pichai in January, he claimed that laid-off Google employees outside the US will get support in line with local practices.

It remains unclear how many employees have been affected globally, or whether there will be further layoffs at the tech giant. 

Tech Layoffs

Google is not the only tech company resorting to layoffs. Amazon has planned to remove 18,000 people from its workforce, a significant jump from previous estimates of 10,000 employees. Meta has also let go off 13,000 employees. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also took full responsibility for the layoffs, claiming that the company got extremely bullish with hirings during and before the pandemic phase.

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Note: Business Today has sent a query to Google India seeking clarity on the matter. Stay tuned for the updates.