The Enterprise Secretary scheduled an urgent Google meeting over Irish job fears amid 12,000 losses

Fears are growing that hundreds more Irish tech workers will lose their jobs after Google announced it will cut its workforce by six percent.

Google parent company Alphabet announced today that they are cutting around 12,000 jobs from their workforce worldwide.

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The layoffs began immediately among the company’s US employees, but will also impact its offices around the world.

Google employs more than 5,000 people directly in Ireland and also supports four thousand other contractors.

The extent of job losses in Ireland is not yet clear, but other tech companies have made similar cuts in recent months, leading to hundreds of layoffs here.

Labor Secretary Simon Coveney is due to meet the head of Google Ireland next week to discuss the extent of the cuts here.

Minister Coveney said: “I am meeting with the head of Google Ireland next week to clarify the implications here.

“Despite global tech cuts, it’s important to remember how strong the sector remains in Ireland.

“In 2022, over 10,000 tech jobs will be created. We are in a strong place and will support affected workers.”

In an email to employees, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company had hired too many people in recent years that didn’t reflect today’s “economic reality”.

He said: “This means we have to say goodbye to some incredibly talented people who we have worked hard to hire and have enjoyed working with. I am deeply sorry.

“The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that have brought us here.

“In the last two years we have experienced periods of dramatic growth. To accommodate and drive that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.

“Thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI, I am confident in the great opportunity ahead.

“To fully grasp it, we have to make tough choices.

“That’s why we conducted a rigorous review of all product areas and functions to ensure our people and roles align with our highest priorities as a company.

“The roles we are eliminating reflect the outcome of this review.”

In the US, Google said they would pay a severance package starting at 16 weeks of salary plus two weeks of extra salary for each year the worker was with the company.