Google offers buyouts in 5 countries as AI costs rise

Google confirmed in a Reuters report published Nov. 4 that it offered voluntary exit packages in June to some employees in five countries.

The move places Alphabet alongside Microsoft, which last week offered voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees to contain costs, according to the Reuters report.

The Google offers covered some staff in Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Switzerland, the company told Reuters. Reuters said it could not determine how many employees accepted the packages.

"In 2025, some of our teams introduced a voluntary exit program with severance," a Google spokesperson said in a statement cited by Reuters. "This past summer, in June, we expanded this program globally in a few countries to support our important work ahead."

The expansion comes as Alphabet tries to manage higher spending on artificial intelligence. Reuters said the outlays have concerned Wall Street and weighed on Alphabet's share price, though the report did not provide a stock move.

Google's workforce has increased in recent quarters, according to Reuters, while the company has tried to move resources into priority areas. Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi has repeatedly identified AI and cloud computing as hiring priorities in quarterly earnings presentations, Reuters said.

Previous voluntary exit programs were offered since last year to employees in some divisions in the U.S. and Britain. Reuters said executives described the program as an option for employees who no longer felt aligned with the company's pace or direction.

The offers have not covered every part of the company. Reuters reported that employees in Google Cloud and DeepMind, Google's AI unit, were excluded from past buyout offers, and that the latest expansion appeared to follow the same pattern.

In Switzerland, where Google employs about 5,000 people and has a large engineering hub in Zurich, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters the program covered multiple divisions but excluded DeepMind.

Those people said Google announced the Swiss packages in mid-June and responded by mid-July to employees who applied. Employees who accepted received one month's salary for each year of service, capped at 12 months, they said.

One person familiar with the matter told Reuters that at least four employees in a team of about 50 accepted the Swiss offer. Employees began leaving in August after the company made the packages available, the people said.

The voluntary structure does not eliminate uncertainty for employees. Reuters reported that in at least one case, Google followed voluntary offers to a division with layoffs, and that Google cut more than 200 jobs in Switzerland in 2023, prompting staff protests and a walkout.