Google’s Job Cuts Have Started in Canada

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, on Monday started notifying employees in Canada of job cuts, according to a spokesperson for Google (via The Globe and Mail).

The news comes a little over two weeks after Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced the company would be laying off 12,000 employees (or 6% of its total workforce) across its many businesses globally.

For U.S.-based staffers, Pichai announced a 60-day paid notification period and severance packages with a minimum of 16 weeks’ pay (plus two weeks for every additional year of employment at the company), healthcare benefits, job placement support, and immigration assistance.

In Canada, however, some Google and Alphabet employees still don’t know what their severance packages will be, while others have signed non-disclosure agreements in exchange for about four weeks of severance pay.

The Google spokesperson declined to comment on how many Canadian employees are being let go or what kind of severance packages they will be offered, but said, “Canada remains an important priority market for Google.”

Alphabet employs about 2,500 people for all of its subsidiaries in Canada, spread largely across Google. Rumours suggest the job cuts will particularly impact teams working on Google’s Nest lineup of smart home products.

Well before announcing the layoffs, Pichai said in July 2022 that the company would cut back on hiring due to the “uncertain” economy.

In the U.S., Google immediately sent termination notices to affected employees. Workers in other markets had to wait weeks to find out whether their job was safe, though. Michael Landry, a Kitchener-based software engineer at Google who received a termination notice on Monday, called the hold “an extended period of limbo” in a post on LinkedIn.

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