Zurich

In Zurich, approximately 250 employees of Alphabet Inc.’s Google protested the company’s decision to lay off around 6% of its workforce by walking out on Wednesday.

As per union spokesman Dominik Fitze, the workers left their workstations before midday with the help of the Syndicom trade union and gathered outside one of the two Google locations in the Swiss city with placards.

They urged Google to speak with an employee committee about alternatives to layoffs and help for people from abroad whose residency is dependent on their employment, as required by Swiss law, Fitze added. In addition, he said, they want the corporation to promise not to make any more job layoffs.

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Even while the protesters made up a relatively small part of Google’s 5,000 or so employees in Zurich, it is unusual for corporate workers at tech corporations to strike. It comes after comparable demonstrations by colleagues about the job layoffs earlier this month in New York and California.

A Google spokesperson noted, “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. However, given the ongoing process, we are not in the position to comment further on the matter.”

In response to the faltering global economy and increasing inflation, Alphabet said in January that it will be laying off more than 12,000 employees, following other tech behemoths including Meta, Amazon, and Salesforce Inc.

Affected employees in the US received notification right away, but in Europe, it has taken longer because of stricter local employment rules that, in some situations, call for a consultation procedure.

Fitze stated that because the workers in Zurich had not yet received notice, it is unknown how many of them lost their jobs.

In 2018, Google employees in numerous places around the world staged a strike in protest of how the company handled complaints of sexual misconduct. Google revealed in January 2023 that it will be eliminating 6% of positions globally and has let go of about 12,000 workers.

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Numerous former staff flocked to Twitter to discuss their fate in the wake of this statement.

As a result of the unexpected layoffs, several people also expressed their hurt. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, was even called upon to resign by online users, former workers, and others. A short time after the Google Layoffs, reports of a probable compensation reduction for Pichai also started to circulate.

Earlier Pichai accepted complete accountability for the layoffs. He said that the corporation overhired during the pandemic when demand was extremely strong.

In the email he sent to Google employees, Pichai stated, “Over the past two years, we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”