Google has reportedly offered a wild opportunity for its workers to get paid in cash to quit their jobs.
The rare offer from the tech giant will mean that some of its workforce who volunteer to quit will receive some hefty severance pay.
This was revealed by the company’s senior vice president, Rick Osterloh, who told staff in the Platforms and Devices vision that they could be eligible for a ‘voluntary exit program’.
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This is according to a report by 9to5Google where it said that employees would need to be based in the US to be eligible for the package.
The particular division was formed in 2024 and is responsible for the handling of product mainstays, including the Pixel phones, Android, Photos, Google One and Chrome.
In a statement, Patrick Seybold, who is a Google spokesperson, said that the program would offer staff members ‘the ability to voluntarily leave the company with a severance package’.
The statement went on to say: “There’s tremendous momentum on this team and with so much important work ahead, we want everyone to be deeply committed to our mission and focused on building great products, with speed and efficiency.”
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This isn’t the first time that Google has made large lay-offs in recent years.
In January 2023, the tech firm made workers redundant who signed a deal that gave them six months of healthcare and at least 16 weeks of full pay.
A whopping 12,000 members of staff were cut in the layoffs and a further 1,000 employees were made redundant the following year, in January 2024.
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While it has not yet been revealed exactly how much money Google employees can expect from this recent voluntary redundancy, it has been well received by the Alphabet Workers Union, despite it not being exactly what they asked for.
Alan McAvinney, who is Google software engineer and the group’s organizing chair, gave a statement to SFGATE where he pointed out that a one-off program for a single division wasn’t what the union had been aiming for.
He said: “We are happy to see material progress in response to our concerns, but we continue to demand that Google commit to practices like offers of voluntary buyouts and fair terms of severance by codifying them in its actual written policies.”
Also speaking to SFGATE, the union’s vice president, Olivia Asemota, said that workers at Google are now concerned that more layoffs could be made soon.