250 Google workers in Switzerland office stage walkout against layoffs: Report

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Around 250 workers in Google’s Zurich office staged a walkout on Wednesday to protest its decision to cut its workforce by 6 per cent over concerns about a broader economic slowdown. The employees walked away from their workstations before lunchtime and gathered outside one of the two Google offices with placards. The employees were supported by their trade union Syndicom, a report in Bloomberg said. 

Similar protests were reported in New York and California earlier this month over job cuts. The workers said that the tech major should engage in dialogue with an employee committee, as per the Swiss law, about possible options in place of job cuts, union spokesman Dominik Fitze told Bloomberg. 

He added that the company should also think about support for foreign nationals whose residency is tied to their employment. The workers said they are also seeking a commitment from the company to refrain from further job cuts, Fitze added.  

Tech layoffs in US 

According to Layoff.fyi’s latest data, more than a quarter million professionals have lost their jobs since the beginning of 2022 due to layoffs in US-based tech companies. There have been 95,000 job losses since January 2023. This includes Dell’s 6,650-person cut and Zoom‘s 1,300-person layoff announcements this week. 

Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Spotify, Yahoo, Twitter, and Zoom have all handed the pink slips to 5–20% of their workforce. And the list keeps getting longer and longer each day. 

The layoffs have extended beyond Silicon Valley and also affected giant companies, like Goldman Sachs which conducted its largest layoffs since the 2008 financial crisis. Even Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse have also trimmed their headcount.  

In the media industry, major companies like Disney, NBC, and CNN have also slashed a substantial share of their staff to fight the slowdown.

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