Google Lays Off 52 Employees in Washington, Including Engineers, Managers, and Recruiters

Google is eliminating 52 positions in Washington state in what appears to be its largest publicly disclosed round of layoffs there since Alphabet's company-wide restructuring in 2023. The move affects engineering and business employees across Google's Seattle, Kirkland, and Redmond offices, as well as several remote employees based in the state.

The reductions were disclosed through a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filing with the Washington State Employment Security Department. The notice states affected employees are also scheduled to leave between early September and early October.

The announcement comes as Washington's technology sector continues to experience workforce reductions, with many companies cutting staff while investing in artificial intelligence and other strategic initiatives.

The WARN notice lists a range of affected positions, including software engineers, engineering managers, product managers, UX designers, and recruiters. The jobs are being permanently eliminated, but the filing does not specify the reasons or whether severance will be provided. Google had not publicly commented on the layoffs at the time of publication.

Google's Latest Washington Workforce Reduction

The reductions appear to be Google's largest publicly disclosed workforce cuts in Washington since Alphabet cut about 12,000 jobs globally in 2023, affecting roughly 6% of its workforce.

The company did not disclose how many of the affected jobs were in Washington, which has long served as one of Google's largest engineering hubs outside California. Teams based in the state work on products and services, including Android, Chrome, Maps, Google Cloud, and advertising technologies. Earlier this year, reports indicated that Google Cloud had reduced staffing within some cybersecurity teams, although no official figures were released.

Separately, four veteran Google researchers, Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Quoc Le and Oriol Vinyals, announced they were leaving the company to launch AI startup Discovery Loop. The group helped lead many of Google's AI research and engineering initiatives. Google is backing the venture through a minority investment and by providing cloud infrastructure.

More Tech Companies Trim Jobs in Washington

The announcement comes just days after Zillow revealed plans to cut 91 jobs in Washington. Combined, the two companies have disclosed plans to eliminate 143 positions in Washington over the past week. The latest cuts add to a growing wave of layoffs across Washington's technology sector. Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, and Snap have also reduced headcount over the past year.

Labour market data point to broader weakness in the state's job market. Washington's unemployment rate reached 5.2% in June, compared with the national rate of 4.2%. State records also show several employers have announced workforce reductions in recent months.

AI Investment Surges Despite Ongoing Layoffs

While Google is reducing its workforce, parent company Alphabet has raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to between $195B and $205B, with much of the spending expected to support AI infrastructure, including data centres and computing capacity.

The spending increase underscores the intensifying competition among technology companies to build AI infrastructure and meet rising demand for generative AI services. It also highlights how major technology companies are funnelling more resources into AI infrastructure even as they continue to reshape their operations.