Google says it spent $2.1 billion on layoffs last year

Google said that it spent $2.1 billion on layoffs last year. The tech giant spent the money on severance packages and other costs as it fired more than 12,000 employees in 2023. 

Earlier this month, Google laid off more than 1,000 employees and spent another $700 million on compensating employees.

According to a recent report by The Verge, the company revealed the figure at its fourth-quarter earnings release. 

While this may sound like a lot of money, Google last year recorded growth in most core businesses, generating $86 billion in the last quarter of 2023. 

This amounts to a 13 per cent increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2022.

The earning report also revealed that Google’s digital ads and cloud computing businesses recorded steady growth.

However, Google Search remains the company’s primary source of revenue, generating $48 billion.

According to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, the subscription and devices segment, which includes services like YouTube Premium, YouTube Music, YouTube TV and Google contributed an additional $10.7 billion.

While Google’s cloud business may be far behind Microsoft Azure and AWS, the company’s cloud division reported a 25 per cent increase year over year, generating $9.19 billion in revenue. 

The tech giant also spent $1.8 billion last year on shutting down offices due to layoffs.

During the investor call, Pichai said that “Gemini Ultra is coming soon” and that the developers are already working on adding it to Google products starting with Search.

With more resources dedicated towards the development of Gemini, Google might shunt some less profitable departments and lay off more employees this year.