Google reportedly lays off hundreds of employees from consumer hardware group – News

Google LLC has reportedly laid off hundreds of employees from its Platforms & Devices group, which develops the company’s Pixel phones and other consumer devices.

The job cuts were first reported by The Information on Thursday. Google later confirmed the workforce reduction without commenting on the number of affected employees.

The several hundred workers reportedly hit by the layoffs represent under 4% of the Platforms & Devices group’s workforce, which stands at about 25,000 employees. It was formed last year through the merger of the Google units responsible for Android and the company’s consumer hardware. The group is led by former Motorola Inc. President Rick Osterloh.

Alongside Android, the Platforms & Devices group is responsible for Google’s ChromeOS laptop operating system and Chrome. It also leads development work on several of the company’s consumer-focused cloud services, including its Google One subscription. Google Search and Google Maps are developed by other business units.

The Platforms & Devices group’s other major focus area is consumer hardware. It develops Google’s Pixel smartphones, the Nest portfolio of smart home appliances and the Fitbit smartwatch series.

The group’s newest product, the Pixel 9a, started shipping in the U.S. on Thursday. It’s a midrange Android smartphone that features a larger display than its predecessor and a new chassis with no camera bump. The Pixel 9a runs on a custom chip, the Tensor G4, that is made using a four-nanometer manufacturing process.

It’s unclear which specific teams are affected by the layoffs. The workforce reduction is not unexpected: Google offered buyouts to some Platforms & Devices staffers in January. The company reportedly signaled at the time that job cuts would follow suit.   

“Since combining the platforms and devices teams last year, we’ve focused on becoming more nimble and operating more effectively and this included making some job reductions in addition to the voluntary exit program that we offered in January,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

The layoffs come on the heel of another workforce reduction that affected the company’s human resources group and cloud business. At the latter unit, the job cuts reportedly affected sales operations, customer experience, internal deal and go-to-market teams. Google described the layoffs as small in a February statement to CNBC.

Other tech giants have also announced restructuring initiatives in recent months. Meta Platforms Inc. let go 5% of its workforce, or about 4,000 employees, at the start of the year. Microsoft earlier cut 650 jobs at its Xbox unit, which develops video game consoles. 

Image: Google