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Google laying off 12,000

Search giant says it spent two years growing and "hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today"

Google is joining Microsoft and Amazon in instituting a wave of mass layoffs, as the company this morning said it would be cutting 12,000 jobs.

As reported by CNBC, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in a Friday morning memo that the cuts would begin immediately in the US, while other countries would take longer "due to local laws and practices."

"Over the past two years we've seen periods of dramatic growth," Pichai said. "To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.

"I am confident about the huge opportunity in front of us thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI. To fully capture it, we'll need to make tough choices."

Pichai mentioned the company's efforts in AI several times, and emphasized the "substantial opportunity" the company has to use it across its offerings.

Earlier this week, Google pulled the plug on its Stadia game streaming offering, a service closure it had originally announced in September, less than two years after it launched.

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Brendan Sinclair avatar
Brendan Sinclair: Brendan joined GamesIndustry.biz in 2012. Based in Toronto, Ontario, he was previously senior news editor at GameSpot.
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