- Google has fired 10% of its managers, directors and vice presidents
- More than 1,300 Google employees will have already lost their jobs by 2024
- The company faces threats from rivals and regulatory bodies.
Google has reportedly cut 10% of its manager, director and vice president positions in an ongoing effort to boost efficiency and improve the company’s operating costs.
The news (via Business Insider Information) comes at the end of a worrying year for the company: although layoffs have not come close to the more than 13,000 seen during 2023, hundreds have lost their jobs at the company as part of several rounds of layoffs, including 1,000 at the beginning 2024. and another 300 in May (via dismissals.fyi).
The latest change, announced by Google CEO Sundar Pichai at a recent meeting, is expected to simplify the organizational structure.
Google fires its own managers
Employees familiar with the matter shared some management roles that were being eliminated entirely, while others would be transformed into non-management roles. This commonly used technique is designed to reduce layers in a company’s organizational structure in an effort to increase efficiency.
The reality is that it is one more measure that is part of the company’s general ambition to be more efficient. Pichai set a goal in September 2022 to be 20% more efficient; its next big round of layoffs, which affected 12,000 at once, likely addressed a large part of that goal.
However, this may not be enough for Google, which has been threatened in more areas than one. Its AI efforts have already been hurt by OpenAI’s immeasurable success with ChatGPT, and now that tool is threatening Google.com’s market dominance. Furthermore, Google’s dominance in the search market has recently come under fire, and other areas of the business are also open to potential regulatory action.
