Google has reportedly cut 10% of its manager, director and VP roles in an ongoing effort to boost efficiency and improve the running costs of the company.
The news (via Business Insider) comes at the end of a troubling year for the company – although layoffs have been nowhere near the 13,000+ plus seen during 2023, hundreds have lost their jobs at the company as part of several rounds of layoffs, including 1,000 at the start of 2024 and a further 300 in May (via layoffs.fyi).
The most recent change, announced by Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a recent all-hands meeting, is hoped to simplify the organizational structure.
Employees familiar with the matter shared some managerial roles were being cut altogether, while others would transform into non-managerial roles. This commonly used technique is designed to reduce layers in a company’s organizational structure in an effort to boost efficiency.
The reality is that this is just another move forming part of the company’s overall ambition to be more efficient. Pichai set a goal in September 2022 to become 20% more efficient – his next major round of layoffs, affecting 12,000 in one fell swoop, likely addressed a big portion of that.