Thousands of Google employees demand fair layoffs
Over 4,500 Google employees signed a petition against the wave of cuts, demanding a more predictable and fair termination process.
For years, working at Google was perceived as an entry ticket to the most desirable workplace in the world: High salaries, lavish campuses, and the promise of a long career. For thousands of employees, this dream no longer feels secure.
In recent days, more than 4,500 employees signed a petition calling on management to grant them protection from layoffs. On Thursday, about a hundred employees gathered outside the company's headquarters in Mountain View, holding signs reading "Google employees for job security," and delivered the petition to Sundar Pichai and other senior executives.
What they are actually demanding
The employees are not asking for a commitment that there will be no future layoffs, but rather a more predictable and fair process: To know in advance what will happen on the day their name is placed on the list.
The petition demands a guaranteed minimum severance package for every laid-off worker, identical to the one offered during the large wave of layoffs in January 2023, as well as for the company to first offer voluntary departure before moving to forced layoffs. Another demand: The abolition of quotas in the GRAD performance evaluation system, so that ratings reflect actual performance rather than a need to pre-allocate a fixed number of low and high scores.
The employees also ask to receive severance as an extended period of paid employment instead of a lump sum – this is particularly significant in the US, where many workers depend on company health insurance or a work visa.
From 12,000 laid-off workers to today
The struggle stems from the wave of layoffs in January 2023, in which about 12,000 employees were fired, and since then cuts and downsizings have continued in units such as Google Cloud. At the same time, Google continues to invest vast capital in artificial intelligence, a gap that fuels frustration: Not a company struggling for survival, but one of the strongest in the world, choosing to invest in technology while its employees fear who is next in line.
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