As part of cost-cutting initiatives, Google has fired off hundreds of people from its hardware, voice help, and engineering divisions.

The layoffs are part of Google's strategy of "responsibly investing in our company's biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead," according to a statement.

Separately, Amazon announced hundreds of job cuts across its Prime Video and MGM Studios divisions.

Highlights: 

• Google Implements Significant Layoffs Across Hardware and Engineering Divisions.
• Amazon Announces Job Cuts in Prime Video and MGM Studios Amid Strategic Shifts.
• Tech Industry Faces Ongoing Workforce Changes, with Google and Amazon's Cost-Cutting Measures and AI Integration Impacting Employment Trends.

Google, like rival Microsoft, is growing its investments in artificial intelligence, with the latter releasing a Copilot feature that blends artificial intelligence into products such as search engine Bing, browser Edge, and Windows for its business customers.

While both IT behemoths are focusing on AI investments, Microsoft "is taking the clear lead in the AI arms race," according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a recent research note. 

The changes come after leaders from Google and its parent firm Alphabet pledged to decrease costs. Google announced a year ago that it would lay off 12,000 employees, or around 6% of its workforce.

Google previously announced the elimination of a few hundred positions, with the majority of the impact falling on its augmented reality hardware team.

Needless layoffs

The Alphabet Workers Union slammed the job cuts in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, as "another round of needless layoffs."

Google is infrequently the simplest era business enterprise that is making cuts. To reassure investors, Meta, Facebook's parent company, has reduced greater than 20,000 people inside the closing 12 months. In 2023, the stock price of Meta improved by nearly 178%.

Amazon announced last month that Prime Video subscribers would begin seeing advertising on movies and television episodes on January 29, putting a date on an announcement made in September.

Prime customers who want ad-free movies and TV series will have to pay an extra $2.99 per month.

In a memo to workers, Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, stated that the firm is increasing investment in areas with the most impact while decreasing investment in others.

Inclusion of AI

Notably, Google unveiled new AI-powered advertisements in May of this year, with "natural-language conversational experience within Google Ads, designed to jump-start campaign creation and simplify Search ads." Google said that its new AI could scan your website and "generate relevant and effective keywords, headlines, descriptions, images, and other assets," transforming the Google Ads chatbot into a mix of designer and sales expert.

The introduction of AI in Google's customer service will have a direct impact on human-centric jobs. According to the source, Google intends to "streamline its workforce, including through potential layoffs to reassign employees in its large-account sales division, who oversee partnerships with major advertisers." It has been stated that the gaps are being filled as a result of the automated productiveness of Google's new AI skills.

By the start of 2023, Google had fired 12,000 employees. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said of the layoffs, "This has been a hard time for any employer." We haven't been at this crossroads in 25 years at Google. 

What to count on in layoffs inside the tech enterprise in 2024?

According to fyi, a website that tracks job cuts inside the enterprise, the wide variety of tech personnel laid off peaked inside the first area of 2023 and has been regularly falling for the reason that then.

Last 12 months, 1,186 tech organizations, together with Spotify and Salesforce, laid off almost 262,600 personnel, with the highest being in January 2023.

Nonetheless, the same data suggests that, despite initial concerns, the labor market is currently stabilizing.