Google has laid off around a thousand employees across the company late Wednesday night. According to CNBC, the layoffs impacted the workforce in Google's central engineering and hardware, as well as employees in its voice-activated software product Google Assistant.

A Google spokesperson told CNBC this move is part of the company's ongoing efforts to push for efficiency and focus on its "biggest product priorities.

New Series of Layoffs at Google 

In 2023, Google implemented a substantial downsizing, affecting 12,000 employees or about 6% of its full-time workforce. Additional cuts were made in the recruiting and news divisions later in the same year.

Google's shift involves focusing on areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), leading to the release of products like the Bard chatbot and the large language model Gemini. 

This realignment is a response to the competitive landscape, with rivals like Microsoft and Amazon making significant strides in similar domains.

The spokesperson told CNBC that the organizational changes aim to enhance efficiency, better collaboration, and align resources with the company's most crucial product priorities. 

"Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally," the spokesperson added.

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Alphabet Workers Union Express Disappointment

Last year, Google also made notable cuts to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. The recent job cuts have faced criticism, with the Alphabet Workers Union has expressed disappointment, deeming them unnecessary.

"Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter. We won't stop fighting until our jobs are safe!" the union wrote in an X post. 

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