More than 700 jobs will be lost at Google

The tech giant's layoff plans will affect several Silicon Valley sites

Google has sketched out plans for a fresh bout of Bay Area job cuts by detailing its intention to chop more than 700 jobs in the region as the tech industry launches 2024 in grim fashion.

Besides Google, other tech companies also are planning Bay Area layoffs: Block and Unity Technology have decided to slash scores of jobs in San Francisco.

Google has decided to trim a total of 703 jobs in the Bay Area, affecting workers in Mountain View, Sunnyvale and San Francisco, according to official WARN notices sent to the state Employment Development Department (EDD).

“As we've said, we're responsibly investing in our company's biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” a Google spokesperson said. “To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better and to align their resources to their biggest product priorities.”

Here are the sites where Google is cutting positions:

• 437 jobs in Mountain View

• 266 positions in Sunnyvale Mountain View-based Google said the organizational re-focusing of the company is continuing in 2024.

“Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally,” the Google spokesperson said.

Unity Technology said it has decided to cut 120 jobs in San Francisco.

Separately, Block, whose best-known products are the Square point-of-sale terminals, intends to cut 51 positions in San Francisco.

Google's job cuts, depending on the location, are expected to begin in March and continue into October of this year, the search giant said.

“Separations resulting from this action are expected to be permanent,” Lindsey MacLean, vice president of Googler Experience, wrote in the

WARN notice to the EDD.

In 2023, Google revealed plans to chop 1,683 Bay Area jobs, affecting workers in Mountain View, Moffett Field, San Bruno, Palo Alto and San Francisco.

Google has disclosed plans in 2023 and 2024 to cut about 2,386 positions in the nine-county region, including the latest disclosures.

The cutbacks are affecting primarily these organizations and units within Google:

• Devices & Services, which includes the company's Pixel, Nest, Fitbit and voice-activated Google Assistant organizations

• Staffing adjustments to the company's Waze, News and recruiting units

• Central engineering team, which lost a few hundred positions

The search giant said it is attempting to help workers facing layoffs. This includes giving the affected workers time to explore different roles at Google and elsewhere, providing help with outplacement services and offering severance packages.

“We're continuing to support any impacted employees as they look for new roles here at Google and beyond,” the Google spokesperson said.