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Google first announced it was laying off staff worldwide a month ago. It has taken this long for the exact number of Irish jobs possibly affected to emerge.
Google Ireland staff were informed by email today (22 February) that their jobs could be at risk of being cut as part of widespread global layoffs first announced by the tech giant last month.
RTE reported that 85 of the 240 layoffs will be in sales, while 80 will be in tech and engineering, and 75 jobs will be lost across various support functions.
Google has an Irish headcount of around 5,500. The 240 people that are in danger of being laid off represent around 4pc of this number.
Google will hold a consultation process beginning tomorrow during which the fate of the employees under threat of losing their jobs will become clearer.
The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Simon Coveney, met with Google Ireland bosses in the days following the original mass lay-offs announcement by Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Coveney attempted to put people at ease regarding the tech layoffs, which have been affecting Irish workers at lots of tech companies, from Zendesk to Salesforce in recent months.
Coveney said at the time that it was “important to remember how strong the tech sector remains in Ireland.”
Pichai said in a memo published in January that around 12,000 jobs in total would be affected, or 6pc of the total global workforce. His memo to staff contained details about how the US employees would be affected specifically. Pichai said at the time that the process of announcing specific job cuts in other regions would take longer due to local laws.
Google’s memo attempted to reassure staff that they would be supported if their jobs were affected by the layoffs.
Also last month, Google’s parent company Alphabet implemented some jobs cuts at its ‘Other Bets’ divisions.
Two of Alphabet’s subsidiary, or ‘Other Bets’ companies reduced staff headcounts by sizeable percentages. Life sciences company Verily laid off 15pc of its workers, while robotics and AI business Intrinsic let go 20pc of its staff.
Updated, 2.19pm, 22 February 2023: This article was amended to reflect that Google has not officially begun laying people off in Ireland and negotiations on job losses are still ongoing. While there is a possibility that 240 jobs could be affected, this is not definite yet.
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