Google Layoffs Continue In 2024 As ‘Hundreds’ Cut From Ad Sales

‘We map customers to the right specialist teams and sales channels to meet their service needs. As part of this, a few hundred roles globally are being eliminated,’ Google says in a statement to CRN.

After over 1,000 layoffs this month across various Google business groups—from Google Assistant to its Devices and Services teams—the tech giant has confirmed it will lay off another “few hundred” employees in its advertising sales group.

“Every year we go through a rigorous process to structure our team to provide the best service to our Ads customers,” Google confirmed to CRN in a statement. “We map customers to the right specialist teams and sales channels to meet their service needs. As part of this, a few hundred roles globally are being eliminated.”

The news was first reported by Business Insider, which cited a memo from Google’s chief business officer, Philipp Schindler, who said the layoffs stemmed from changes to how Google’s sales team operates.

Schindler’s memo said the layoffs will mostly affect Google’s Large Customer Sales group, which sells advertisements to Google’s largest customers. Google’s Customer Solutions team will now become more core to its advertisement sales business, according to Schindler.

Google did not respond to a request for comment on whether any of the cuts would impact Google Cloud. Google added that those employees impacted by the layoffs can apply “for open roles or elsewhere” inside the company.

Google Layoffs In 2024

In January 2023, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google said it would be laying off 12,000 employees.

In January 2024, the technology conglomerate said that more than 1,000 employee cuts had occurred far.

Last week, Google confirmed it was cutting a few hundred employee roles in each division inside its Google Assistant software business. Google told CRN that it was “restructuring” itself to help boost Google Assistant as it implements new generative AI technology, such as AI chatbot Google Bard, to build a new and improved Google Assistant.

Last week Google also confirmed laying off hundreds of employees inside its Devices and Services business unit. These layoffs will mostly impact Google’s augmented reality division as well as Google’s Nest, Fitbit and Pixel hardware groups.

Google acquired Nest in 2014 for $3.2 billion, followed by buying Fitbit for $2.1 billion in 2021. The company said Devices and Services layoffs were made in part to reorganize to a model where there’s only one division responsible for hardware engineering across Fitbit, Pixel and Nest.

“We’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” Google said last week regarding the layoffs . “To best position us for these opportunities, 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.”

Tech Layoffs In 2024

Google is far from the only technology company to conduct layoffs this month as many companies’ 2023 budgets have now been closed.

One of Google’s biggest cloud and artificial intelligence rivals, Amazon, unveiled layoffs in January as well, including more than 500 employees from its livestreaming video company Twitch, which is one of the world’s most popular livestreaming platforms. Amazon also recently announced hundreds of employee cuts inside its Prime Video and MGM Studios teams.

So far in 2024, tech firms have laid off over 7,500 employees, according to layoff tracking website Layoffs.fyi. The total number of tech layoffs in 2024 so far is much smaller compared with 2023, when tech companies let go tens of thousands of employees in January.