Why Google Has Fired Hundreds In Voice Assistant, Engineering Teams

The new year has kicked off for the tech industry with several companies announcing significant job cuts.

Google laid off hundreds of its employees across various teams today, a move aimed at cutting costs and streamlining operations. Most of the employees fired were working on voice-based Google Assistance and at the augmented reality hardware team. Workers in the company's central engineering organization were also hit by the cuts, the company said in a statement.

The job cuts are part of ongoing organisational changes that have been in motion since the second half of 2023, with the objective of enhancing efficiency and aligning resources with the company's major product priorities.

"Throughout the second half of 2023, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, and to align their resources to their biggest product priorities. Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally," a Google spokesperson told Reuters.