Google layoffs: Late-night email terminates 453 employees in India

Around 453 people were laid off through an official email late at night on Thursday from Google's India offices as per a report, which further claimed that firing took place across different departments.

Google India's Country Head and Vice President Sanjay Gupta sent an email to the employees who were laid off and informed them about their sudden, said the report published by the Business Line.

However, this remains unknown whether this is a fresh round of layoffs or is part of the company's plan to cut down the staffing by around 12,000 which is 6% of its global workforce, as was announced by Google CEO Sundar Pichai in January.

Informing the employees about the move in an email, Pichai took 'full responsibility for the decisions that led the company to this juncture and added that a ‘rigorous review' was undertaken by the company before reaching this conclusion.

“The roles we're eliminating reflect the outcome of that review. They cut across (parent firm) Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions,” Pichai wrote in the mail.

He added that the company went through a “rigorous review across product areas and functions” so that the people and their roles are aligned with the highest priorities of the company.

“The roles we’re eliminating reflect the outcome of that review. They cut across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions,” Pichai wrote in the mail.

The report comes a day after Google India was said to have posted various job vacancies on LinkedIn. Some of the positions open were Manager, Startup Success Team, Employee Relations Partner, Startup Success Manager, Google Cloud, Vendor Solutions Consultant, Google Cloud, Product Manager, and Database Insights. The vacancies were available across Google offices, in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Gurugram.

The layoff continues amid Indian-origin Neal Mohan taking over as the new CEO of YouTube after its former CEO Susan Wojcicki stepped down on Thursday.