With the announcement by Google parent Alphabet of 12,000 layoffs, the attack on jobs in the technology industry has been taken to a new level. The number of tech jobs eliminated in the first three weeks of the new year has already reached one third of the total of more than 241,000 industrywide layoffs in 2022.
While many of these job cuts are concentrated in the US, the assault on tech workers is global in character. In an email sent to Google employees on Friday, CEO Sundar Pichai wrote that the layoff of 6 percent of the workforce would impact jobs internationally and “cut across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions.”
Pichai also said the layoffs were made “to ensure that our people and roles are aligned with our highest priorities as a company.” In other words, as demanded by the financial oligarchy, the jobs of Alphabet employees are being sacrificed to ensure the profitability of the $1.27 trillion global technology conglomerate.
No one should underestimate the ruthlessness with which the corporate elite is pursuing its attack on jobs and living standards. While Pichai wrote, “We’ve already sent a separate email to employees in the US who are affected,” workers in New York City reported they learned about being laid off when they arrived at work on Friday morning and were denied entry into the company’s corporate offices.
With the Alphabet announcement, the number of tech job cuts this year reached more than 75,000, according to the Tech Layoff Tracker maintained by TrueUp. Among the other mass layoffs announced in 2023 are Amazon (18,000 jobs), Microsoft (10,000 jobs), Salesforce (7,000 jobs) and Cloud Software Group (2,000 jobs).
-- Kevin Reed, "Google lays off 12,000 workers as tech jobs bloodbath intensifies" (WSWS).
