Tech layoffs: Google and Rivian both cut jobs

The job cuts continue at Google and Rivian as both companies further trimmed their workforces Wednesday, part of a larger trend of layoffs in the tech industry this year.

Google laid off an unspecified number of workers, though the cuts were not company-wide. The company classified them as a reorganization that was part of the normal course of business. Affected employees will be able to apply for internal roles.

Google did not confirm or deny a report from Business Insider that teams in finance (including Google’s treasury, business services, and revenue cash operations) and real estate units were impacted. (One employee told that publication the changes were “pretty large-scale.”) But a Google spokesperson did confirm to Fast Company that it was not a company-wide layoff.  

In addition to today’s layoffs, Google’s restructuring will also include some jobs moving abroad and to U.S.-based hubs in which the company is investing.

“As we’ve said, we’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” a Google spokesperson told Fast Company. “To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities. Through this, we’re simplifying our structures to give employees more opportunity to work on our most innovative and important advances and our biggest company priorities, while reducing bureaucracy and layers.”

Rivian, meanwhile, cut roughly 1% of its workforce. This came just two months after the company laid off 10% of its employees, following reduced demand for the company’s vehicles (and electronic vehicles in general) and a lower-than-expected production forecast for 2024.

Rivian did not immediately reply to Fast Company’s request for comment on the reports.

Year to date, nearly 75,000 tech workers have lost their jobs at 257 companies, including Tesla, Dell, Cisco, and SAP, according to Layoffs.fyi.

The Google cuts were foreshadowed earlier this year. In January, the company laid off thousands of employees in various departments and launched reorganizations in several divisions, from search to YouTube. And CEO Sundar Pichai hinted at the time that more could be coming.

“We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year,” Pichai wrote in an internal memo. “The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices.”

The 2024 cuts follow a round of layoffs in January 2023 that cut 12,000 jobs.

Rivian’s troubles started when it announced its fourth quarter 2023 earnings in February. The company told investors it had lost $1.5 billion during that three-month period, which is when it also announced the layoffs. At the time, it employed 16,700 people, but it was unclear how many of those it considered salaried, meaning it was hard to put an exact number on the number of people affected then or Wednesday.

Shares of Google parent company, Alphabet, closed up 0.5% on Wednesday, while Rivian was largely unchanged on the news, gaining 0.34%. Year to date, Alphabet’s stock is up 12.5%, while Rivian’s has lost nearly 59% of its value.

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