Sharing’s paring for Cloud staff

Scores of Google workers will reportedly be forced to share desks as the budget-tightening tech giant cuts down on office space.

The employees in Google’s unprofitable Cloud division will also be asked to come to the office on different days so they won’t overlap with their deskmates, according to an internal memo obtained by CNBC.

The mandate — which takes effect next quarter at offices in New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Calif., and Kirkland, Wash. — will allow the company to “continue to invest in Cloud’s growth,” the memo said.

“Most Googlers will now share a desk with one other Googler,” the memo said.

“Through the matching process, they will agree on a basic desk setup and establish norms with their desk partner and teams to ensure a positive experience in the new shared environment,” it added.

The document said Google will vacate some office space as part of the initiative. Employees who decide to come into the office on an unscheduled day will be placed in an “overflow drop-in space.”

Affected workers will be required to work on site two days a week, rather than the three-day requirement under Google’s return-to-office plan.

Google will reportedly refer to teams within its Google Cloud division as “neighborhoods,” which will set standards for the desk-sharing plan, such as how workers can decorate their work stations.

Desk-sharing emerged weeks after Google parent Alphabet rankled employees by laying off about 12,000 staff, or roughly 6% of its overall workforce. CEO Sundar Pichai said the cuts were necessary to ensure the company could focus on artificial intelligence and other burgeoning fields.

“Our data show Cloud Googlers value guaranteed in-person collaboration when they are in the office, as well as the option to work from home a few days each week,” a spokesperson said.