Global Google layoffs have affected workers at new Durham office, employees say
Mass layoffs announced by Google on Friday appear to have hit at least one Triangle-area office. Multiple Google employees told The News & Observer that several of their coworkers were let go from Google Cloud’s downtown Durham office.
Google opened its Google Cloud engineering hub on Morris Street in January 2022. When the office was first unveiled the previous year, the company stated it could eventually support more than 1,000 jobs.
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet, wrote in a blog post Friday that the company was laying off around 12,000 positions globally.
“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.”
Pichai noted that cuts occurred “across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels, and regions.”
Google’s reductions come as other major tech firms have laid off workers, including Microsoft and Amazon.
In an email to The News & Observer, Google spokesperson Ryan Lamont did not confirm Triangle cuts but did share how impacted employees were notified.
“We’ve already sent a separate email to employees in the U.S. who are affected,” he said.
Google has had a small presence in the Triangle before the Google Cloud hub was first announced. Since 2005, the company has operated an office in Chapel Hill and has a data center in Caldwell County, built in 2007.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.
This story was originally published January 20, 2023 at 2:58 PM.
