Alphabet, the parent company of Google, said on Friday that it plans to cut 12,000 jobs, becoming the latest technology company to reduce its work force after a hiring spree during the pandemic and concerns about a broader economic slowdown.
The job cuts announced by Sundar Pichai, Alphabet’s chief executive, amount to about 6 percent of the company’s global work force. Mr. Pichai said the company expanded too rapidly during the pandemic, when demand for digital services boomed.
“We hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today,” Mr. Pichai said in a note to employees posted on the company’s website.
Google joins a list of other technology companies that have laid off workers after concluding they had overextended under the belief that the pandemic-fueled boom for digital services and online tools represented a new normal. Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Twitter are among others who have announced thousands of job cuts.
