Associated Press
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) – Google has provided shopping to another workforce range across several major divisions prior to a court decision that could order the disbandment of the Internet empire. Mountain View, California, confirmed the streamlining reported by several news outlets.
It’s not clear how many employees are affected, but offers have been made to staff at Google’s search, advertising, research and engineering units. Google employs nearly 186,000 workers in the global salary of parent company Alphabet Inc.
“Early this year, some of our team introduced a retired voluntary exit program for US-based Googleers, and some more offer programs to support important work going forward,” Google spokesman Courtenay Mencini said in a statement.
“Many teams are also asking remote employees who live near their offices to return to their hybrid work schedules to get people to face to face,” Mensini said.
Google is offering the acquisition while waiting for a federal judge to determine its fate after the ubiquitous search engine was declared an illegal monopoly by the US Department of Justice as part of a case nearly five years ago.
US District Judge Amit Mehta should consider a government proposal to ban Google from Apple and other tech companies for more than $26 a year, locking search engines as the best place for online information, sharing data with rivals, and forcing the sale of popular Chrome browsers. The judge is expected to take control before Labor Day, clearing the way Google pursues plans to appeal last year’s decision, labeling search engines as monopoly.
Like some of the Big Tech peers, Google has been regularly cutting staffing since 2023 as it began backtracking from a hiring fuss triggered during the pandemic lockdown that has fueled the enthusiastic demand for digital services.
Google began post-pandemic cuts by laying off 12,000 workers in early 2023, and has since trimmed several sectors to bolster profits while increasing spending on artificial intelligence.
Original issue: June 11, 2025, 12:40pm EDT
