Swiss Google workers stage walkout as job cuts hit Europe

Hundreds of Google workers staged a walkout on Wednesday on the firm’s workplace in Zurich, Switzerland, after greater than 200 employees had been laid off.

In January, Google’s father or mother firm Alphabet introduced plans to chop 12,000 jobs around the globe, equal to six% of its world workforce.

The resolution got here amid a wave of job cuts throughout company America, notably in tech, the place corporations have shed greater than 290,000 employees for the reason that begin of the yr, in line with monitoring website Layoffs.fyi.

Workers at Google’s Zurich workplace, dwelling to round 5,000 workers, had staged a walkout final month, protesting towards then impending layoffs.

A consultant for IT employees’ union Syndicom, which quite a few workers belong to, mentioned greater than 2,000 employees members had supplied to cut back their wages and dealing hours in an try to forestall job cuts. Google apparently rejected this proposal.

“Our members at Google Zurich and all employees joining the walkout are showing solidarity with those laid off,” a Syndicom spokesperson mentioned.

“They are bothered by the non-transparent nature of the layoffs, and are especially disappointed that Google is laying off workers at a time when the company is making billions in profit every year.”

A Google spokesperson mentioned the corporate had made cuts to make sure the variety of roles remained aligned with its highest priorities.

“The consultation process has now concluded in Switzerland and employees whose roles were impacted have been notified.”

(Reporting by Martin Coulter; enhancing by Chris Reese and Jason Neely)