Google CEO Sundar Pichai says search giant has cut manager roles by 10% in drive for efficiency

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has reportedly cut a tenth of the search giant’s management roles since last year as part of an effort to become more efficient.

In total, Google has reduced the number of managers, directors and vice presidents within its workforce by 10%, Pichai said during a meeting on Wednesday.

A Google spokesperson said the structural changes described by Pichai are projected to begin as early as 2023 and do not represent job cuts beyond those previously reported.

Some managers moved into individual contributor roles – meaning they are no longer responsible for other employees.

An unspecified number of other managers were fired, the spokesman added.

Insider was the first to report Pichai’s comments. Shares of Google parent Alphabet were flat in trading on Friday.

Pichai had previously identified “sustainable cost savings” as one of Google’s top goals for 2024.

This year alone, Google has cut hundreds of jobs across multiple divisions, including its ad sales team, its core engineering team and the hardware division responsible for devices such as the Pixel, Nest and Fitbit.

The biggest round of layoffs occurred in 2023, when Google cut nearly 12,000 employees in a major purge.

The restructuring comes as Google tries to compete with Sam Altman’s OpenAI and other rising rivals in the artificial intelligence sector.

Google is also in the middle of several high-profile legal battles that could upend its business model — including an imminent breakup of its search business after a federal judge ruled it was a “monopolist” last August.

Google is just one of many Big Tech giants to cut workforces in recent months due to tight economic conditions and a desire to shift more resources to the artificial intelligence race.

Mark Zuckerberg famously declared 2023 a “year of efficiency” at Meta as he cut tens of thousands of jobs at the parent of Facebook and Instagram.

Meta’s middle managers were reportedly told to move into individual contributor roles or leave as part of what was reportedly described internally as a “flattening”.