The speculations regarding mass layoffs at Google, affecting teams globally, have been confirmed following the tech giant's announcement of restructuring plans in a memo. The possible layoffs hinted in the memo will affect teams in the finance division worldwide, including those in Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East.

Without confirming the exact layoffs numbers, Google’s Chief Financial Officer, Ruth Porat underlined in the memo, “The tech sector is in the midst of a tremendous platform shift with Al. As a company, this means we have the opportunity to make more helpful products for billions of users and provide faster solutions to our customers, but it also means we collectively have to make tough decisions, including how and where we work to align with our highest priority areas. Over the past year, we have talked about creating hubs of Fin'ooglers around the world that are vibrant and have a strong culture. This strategy will help us be a more efficient organization and enables us to run 24 hours a day while respecting Fin'ooglers (a term used for Google's employee in finance division) worktimes."

"We are sad to say goodbye to some talented teammates and friends we care about, and we know this change is difficult,” she added in the memo.

The restructuring will include layoffs and relocations, as the company pushes resources to favour investments in Artificial Intelligence. In addition to this, the tech giant is planning to create centralised hubs in Bangalore - India, Dublin, Mexico City, Atlanta and Chicago. 

The Google layoffs which CEO Sundar Pichai warned about in 2023 adds to the fears of job loss due to technological shifts around the world, as he underlined, “We’re very, very focused on this set of opportunities we have, and I think there’s a lot of work left. There’s also an important inflexion point with AI. Where we can, we are definitely prioritising and moving people to our most important areas, so that is ongoing work. We are trying to accomplish that across many different ways. We’re literally looking at every aspect of what we do, and as we said on our last earnings call, we’re thinking about how to re-engineer our cost base in a durable way. We are definitely being focused on creating durable savings. We are pleased with the progress, but there’s more work left to do. 

This will be the second significant layoffs at the company after a wave of global workforce reduction in 2023 affecting approximately 12,000 employees across the US and India.