Google teams include in their distant workers’ cuts

Five years removed since the beginning of the pandemic Google Requires that some remote employees return to the office when they want to keep the job and avoid a broader costs in the company.

A few units inside Google They told remote employees that their roles could be at risk if they do not start appearing in the nearest office on the hybrid work schedule, according to internal documents that viewed CNBC. Some of these employees were previously approved for remote work.

As the pandemic moves further into the rear view mirror, more and more companies strengthen its restrictions on remote work, forcing some employees who moved to distant places to reconsider their priorities if they want to maintain their work. Changing the tone is particularly acute in the technological area, which so aggressively jumped into flexible working mechanisms in 2020 that San Francisco Market Commercial Real Estate He is still fighting for recovery.

Google started offering some US staff Voluntary ransoms In the beginning of 2025, and some remote employees were told that this would be their only option if they did not return to the nearest office for at least three days a week.

Recent threats land at a time when Google and many of its technical peers are looking for cost reduction costs at the same time Infuse of money into artificial intelligencewhich requires great infrastructure and technical talent costs. With conducting widespread dismissal At the beginning of 2023 Google started targeted cuts in different teams, emphasize The importance of increasing AI investment.

As of the end of last year, Google had about 183,000 employees, about 190,000 two years earlier.

Google co -founder Sergei Brin told ah workers In February, they should be in the office every day, and 60 hours a week – a “sweet performance spot”, said in a memory of CNBC. Brin said the company should “turbulent” efforts to keep up with AI competition, which “very accelerated”.

The Google Courtenay Mencini press -secretary said the decisions around the requirements of remote workers are based on individual teams rather than politics across the company.

“As we said earlier, personal cooperation is an important part of how we innovate and solve difficult problems,” CNBC said in a statement. “To support this, some teams asked for remote employees living near the office to return to personal work three days a week.”

According to one of the recent reports, Google technicians staff said they should go to the office’s hybrid schedule or take a voluntary exit package. Remote employees in the unit offer disposable relocation costs to go 50 miles from the office.

According to the internal memo, remote human resources employees should be eliminated, or what Google calls “employees of this unit approved for remote work and live more than 50 miles from the office, can save their current arrangements, but will have to go hybrids if they want new roles in the company.

Google earlier proposed The voluntary exit program for full -time staff in people’s operations, since March, is stated in the memo sent by the main personnel fiona Sikani in February.

This happened after the company said in January what it would be bid Voluntary weekend packages for full -time staff in the US group and devices that include Android, Chrome and products such as Fitbit and Nest. As of this month, nearly two dozen teams were reduced in this unit. While the internal correspondence showed that the remote work was a factor in the dismissal, Mensini stated that this was not the main account for changes.

A year ago Google united His Android unit with his hardware group led by Rick Osterlach, senior vice -president. In January, Osterloch stated that a voluntary exit plan could be suitable for staff fighting a hybrid work schedule.

Mencini said CNBC that since the groups united, the team “focused on becoming more agile and work more efficiently, and this included some job lowering in addition to the voluntary exit program.” She added that the unit continues to hire in the US and worldwide.

See: Interview with CEO Google Cloud Thomas Curian