Tech company Google is cutting about 21% of its workforce in Irvine after renewing its lease here last year.
Parent company Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) said a total of 52 employees will lose their jobs as of next month at the gleaming local base at 19510 and 19520 Jamboree Road.
The affected people include those working on the company’s cloud platform, as well as software and customer experience employees.
The layoffs are expected to be permanent, Charlotte Taylor, vice president of people operations, said in a Feb. 26 letter to California employment officials.
Google is the 8th largest software company in Orange County, according to the Business Journal’s latest list, with an estimated 250 local employees as of last year. Its specialties include machine learning, cloud storage, artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
Irvine Lease Renewed
Last October, brokerage data showed that Alphabet renewed leases for a pair of buildings at its namesake campus in Irvine. It was one of the top reported office lease deals in OC, at the time.
The company extended its lease for nearly 200,000 square feet of office space at 19510 and 19520 Jamboree Road, which are part of the five-building Google Center campus near the Irvine and Newport Beach city lines, according to a quarterly market report published by brokerage Savills.
Terms of the lease were not published in the report.
Google said the staff realignment taking place next month in Irvine is part of the normal course of business.
“Our teams have continued to make changes to operate more efficiently, remove layers and ensure they are set up for long term success. This work is ongoing as we continue to invest in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” a Google spokesperson told the Business Journal.
Wider Series of Staff Cuts
Affected employees in Irvine will be able to apply for open roles across Google, the company said.
It is also supporting all workers about to lose their jobs, in line with local requirements, including time to explore different roles at Google and elsewhere, outplacement services and severance offerings.
The cuts were part of a wider series of cutbacks in the company’s human resources and cloud units announced last month, according to CNBC TV.
Some affected employees’ roles are being relocated to India and Mexico City, according to people familiar with the matter and internal correspondence viewed by CNBC. It was not known if any of the Irvine positions were being moved there.
CFO Anat Ashkenazi said one of her top priorities would be to drive more cost-cutting as Google expands its spending on Artificial Intelligence infrastructure in 2025.
