Google’s parent company Alphabet has announced it is laying off around 12,000 employees, around six per cent of its workforce.

In a message to staff, Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai said redundancies for US employees would take place with immediate effect, while the process in other countries would take longer due to local laws and practices.

Explaining the rationale behind the lay-offs, Pichai said that Google had faced periods of dramatic growth over the past few years, and to match and fuel that growth, “we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today”.

“I am confident about the huge opportunity in front of us thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI,” Pichai said.

To fully capture this opportunity, Pichai conceded that the company had to make some “tough choices”.

“We’ve undertaken a rigorous review across product areas and functions to ensure that our people and roles are aligned with our highest priorities as a company,” he said. “The roles we’re eliminating reflect the outcome of that review.”

The news follows reports that Microsoft is set to cut about five per cent of its workforce with 11,000 roles facing the axe.

Pichai’s staff memo echoes Microsoft's stated intention to focus on imbuing its products with more AI going forward.

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