Google Fires Several Employees Including Fitbit Co-founders, Employees Take to Social Media 

Google has reportedly fired several employees, and those impacted are mainly those who have worked on the development of Google Assistant. Apart from employees who were involved with Google Assistant, those in the augmented reality hardware team and employees who worked on Pixel have also been impacted, according to reports. Google had announced last year that over 12,000 of its employees would be impacted due to the layoffs that were being planned.

Some notable names such as James Park and Eric Friedman, co-founder of Fitbit, have also been fired. They had joined the Google team post the Fitbit acquisition in 2021. Reports suggest that the entire product team, including Nest, Pixel and Fitbit, would now report to a single leadership. James Park, who was the vice president and general manager of Fitbit prior to joining Google, played an extremely pertinent role in unveiling the Pixel Watch and Pixel Watch 2 for the company.

Employees Take to Social Media Platforms After Being Fired from Google

Some employees have started to Tweet about their dismissal from the Alphabet company. “Google's back at it again with the layoffs. This time my team and I were all impacted. If anyone is looking for some of the best designers I've ever worked with (or me) do let me know. I'd love to make some connections,” tweeted Daniel T Hall, who was responsible for designing creative AI experiences at the company. 

The Alphabet Workers Union has condemned the decision of the management saying: “Tonight, Google began another round of needless layoffs. Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter. We won’t stop fighting until our jobs are safe!”.

However, Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet while announcing the layoffs last year had said that: “As an almost 25-year-old company, we’re bound to go through difficult economic cycles. These are important moments to sharpen our focus, reengineer our cost base, and direct our talent and capital to our highest priorities.”