More layoffs at Google, as company fires protesters

28 terminated over Israel protest

Google is planning to make more employees redundant to reduce costs, according to a report by Reuters.

A spokesperson for Google did not explain where the latest cuts will fall, but said those affected will be able to apply for other jobs within the company, and some roles will move to new hubs in India, Dublin, Chicago and Atlanta.

"Throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities," the spokesperson said, according to Reuters.

Last year Google made several rounds of job cuts including in its news division and recruitment deartments, and in January the company announced it was laying off hundreds of employees in divisions including the Voice Assistant unit, hardware teams handling Pixel, Nest and Fitbit, and a substantial portion of the augmented reality (AR) team, as part of a shift of focus onto AI.

Google fires 28 protesters

On Wednesday, Google fired 28 employees who protested against Project Nimbus, a cloud services contract with the Israeli government.

It follows the arrest on Tuesday of nine protesting employees, five in Sunnyvale, California, and four in New York, after they refused to leave Google's offices. They were charged with criminal trespass, according to CNBC.

The protests were organised by a group called No Tech for Apartheid, which claims the contract enables the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) to target Palestinians in the Gaza war.

On Wednesday, an internal memo from Google's VP global security Chris Rackow said the company had "terminated the employment of 28 employees found to have been involved."

Last month another Google employee was fired after protesting against Project Nimbus in New York. Amazon is also involved in the $1.2 billion cloud contact.