Google Layoffs: Google employees in Switzerland stage walkout over mass layoffs

Ever since the world revived from the global Covid 19 pandemic, we have witnessed numerous companies and startups downsize their workforces and lay off thousands of employees. The tech sector has been among those who have been severely affected by the brunt of the blow – last year, 965 tech companies slacked off more than 150,000 employees across the globe. And now, it seems that employees are no longer able to bear the layoffs.

Google, which survived the majority of the economic plunge only to give in last month, when it witnessed a portion of its employees stage a walkout in protest to the proposed layoffs in a demonstration of solidarity towards the employees laid off by the company in offices across the world. As per the media reports, 250 employees from the Alphabet subsidiary staged a walkout in Zurich on Wednesday. The reason for doing so is a simple one – in protest of the tech behemoth’s decision to minimise it’s global workforce by about 6%.

Around 250 employees of Google’s Switzerland office walked out to protest the company’s decision to snip off its workforce by 6 percent leading to thousands of layoffs.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the workers got up from their desks before lunchtime and assembled with placards outside one of two Google offices in the Swiss city. The employees were supported by their trade union Syndicom.

Even though, the 250  protesters represented a small proportion of Google’s around 5,000 Zurich-based employees, it is rare for workers from tech companies to stage a protest like this. The incident follows similar protests in New York and California earlier this month over job cuts, Bloomberg reported.

 As dictated by Swiss law, the protesting workers called on Google to participate in dialogue with an employee committee, about alternatives to job cuts. Union spokesman Dominik Fitze told Bloomberg that they also demanded support for foreign nationals whose residency is tied to their employment and sought a commitment from the company to refrain from further job cuts.

“We know this is an uncertain time for our employees and we are working hard to share updates as soon as we can in line with local labor law,” a Google spokesperson told Bloomberg. “However, given the ongoing process, we are not in the position to comment further on the matter.”

Google’s parent company Alphabet said in January that plans to lay off more than 12,000 employees. With this move, it joined the string of other tech behemoths including Meta, and Amazon in holding back operations due to a weakening global economy and rising inflation.