The tech giant Wednesday notified workers from YouTube’s operations and creator management teams that their positions had been eliminated, according to an email reviewed by The New York Times. YouTube, the world’s most popular video service, employed 7,173 people Tuesday, a person with knowledge of the total said.
“We’ve made the decision to eliminate some roles and say goodbye to some of our teammates,” YouTube’s chief business officer, Mary Ellen Coe, wrote in a note to employees at the organization. “Anyone in the Americas” and the Asia-Pacific region “who is or may be impacted will be notified by the end of day today,” the note said.
The layoffs, which were earlier reported by the blog Tubefilter, primarily affect groups of employees who offer support to YouTube’s millions of content creators, two people with knowledge of the cuts said.
Slow recovery
YouTube has struggled to fully recover from an advertising slowdown in the past year and has contended with strong competition from TikTok, the short-video service popular with younger users. Google has been looking for more than a year for ways to cut costs and trim bureaucracy. Last week, the company eliminated more than 1,000 jobs from its core engineering division; its voice-operated product, Google Assistant; and some projects involving augmented reality, the technology that combines the real world with a digital overlay.
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“We’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” Andrea Faville, YouTube’s head of corporate communications, said in a statement. Various Google teams conducted layoffs and reorganizations in the second half of 2023, and “some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally.” In a note to employees Wednesday, Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, said they should expect to see cuts for the rest of the year, but not as big as what the company experienced last year.
The company reported that it had more than 182,000 employees at the end of September, a figure that ballooned from 119,000 in December 2019. One year ago, Google began the process of shedding about 6% of its workforce, or 12,000 people.
Now an employer that had become known for its cushy amenities resembles many of its Silicon Valley peers.
Mass layoffs continue
Since the new year began, numerous tech companies have announced job reductions. Discord said last week that it would lay off 17% of its staff, which amounts to 170 people. Amazon shed hundreds of workers from its Twitch streaming service, Prime Video and MGM Studios. Xerox said this month that it would cut 15% of its 23,000-person staff, and video game software provider Unity Software said it would eliminate 25% of its workforce.
YouTube generates some of its revenue from ads that play before and during videos. But the platform’s reliable growth was interrupted by an ad slowdown that began in late 2022, when rising inflation and interest rates caused advertisers to slash their budgets. YouTube recorded declining revenue for several quarters, stopping that slide in June. Even now, ad sales have not yet surpassed their previous rate of growth.
The platform has focused on selling more subscriptions to YouTube TV, its alternative to cable programming, which is now available with the National Football League’s Sunday Ticket, a package that gives weekly access to various games. YouTube has also said it has more than 80 million subscribers to its services that offer music streaming and ad-free video streaming.
YouTube employees who were laid off have 60 days to find new roles within the company before their dismissals officially take effect.
