4,500 Google Employees Demand Job Security Amid Big Tech Layoffs
Google workers signed, sealed and delivered a petition to Google and Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai on Thursday, asking for more protections against layoffs.
Members of the Alphabet Workers Union descended on the company’s Mountain View campus to deliver the petition, signed by 4,500 employees. While the union leaders said that Pichai did not meet with them, they described a productive conversation with one of his staff members.
KQED reached out to Google for comment but did not receive a response.
Speakers at Thursday’s press conference shared their experiences with layoffs. One speaker told a story about their colleague arriving at “take your child to work day” with a four-year-old in tow only to learn that they no longer had a job. Another talked about how some employees’ layoffs cost them visa sponsorships and threatened their ability to stay in the U.S.
The protest came at a time of mounting uncertainty for tech industry employees, many of whom are contending with a labor market that’s being radically reshaped by artificial intelligence and a housing market that’s becoming rapidly less affordable as AI companies begin their IPOs.
Since 2022, companies like Oracle, Meta, LinkedIn and Amazon have laid off thousands of employees, citing the need to shift spending elsewhere to meet AI needs, such as data center construction. In May, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order focused on preparing workers and businesses for job disruptions driven by AI, including policy options such as severance standards and expanded unemployment insurance.
At Thursday’s press conference, union president and software engineer Parul Koul said that the campaign started in January 2023 when 12,000 Google employees were laid off “overnight.” The movement steadily gained momentum as the waves of mass layoffs continued, Koul said.
“Every time Google management has said it was a difficult decision. It was a response to economic headwinds,” Koul said, referencing the rounds of layoffs. “The reality is, in that same time period, Google’s valuation has gone from over $1 trillion to over $4 trillion.”
Recent reporting from TechCrunch suggests that Google has let go of somewhere between 1,500 and 3,000 engineers just this year. Google’s March 2026 Securities and Exchange Commission filing indicates that the company has over 190,000 employees.
“These layoffs and cuts are not difficult decisions, but simply profit being put over the people that make this company run,” Koul said.
Another speaker pointed out that Google “never performed layoffs before 2023,” despite seeing “a decrease in profits during 2008.”
Organizers framed the layoffs as a chapter of a longer history of exploitation and labor organizing.
“The same types of people decades ago told workers that we couldn’t have a 40-hour work week, that long hours and burnout were the cost of doing business. They told us that a weekend was impossible, that health and safety standards were impossible,” Koul said. “Workers before us have proved that all of those things are possible and more, and the only barrier to us achieving them is how organized we are.”
The Googlers’ petition calls for guaranteed severance, for voluntary exit packages to become an established policy and for the option to take severance as an extended paid leave instead of a lump sum to preserve their healthcare and immigration status.
They also demanded an end to the Googler Reviews and Development performance review system — known as “GRAD” — a bell curve-style grading system for employees, according to Meghan Day, an employee speaking at the event.
KQED’s Sarah Hotchkiss contributed to this report.