The search giant Google is reducing its workforce strength at Waze, which happens to be its mapping service division. In order to increase efficiency and save costs, many well-known corporations in Silicon Valley have started scaling back operations.
About the transition and job cuts at Waze:
Waze is in transit, wherein it will transfer the existing advertising software to Google Ads technology. It has led the company to minimize the roles focusing on monetizing Waze Ads. Google Geo vice president Chris Phillips sent a memo to the Waze staff. He told them that positions in sales and marketing, analytics, and operations would be there. However, the number of employees that will be laid off was not mentioned.
Google revealed that to create a better and seamless experience for the advertisers of Waze, the transition has taken effect, including transitioning the existing advertising system of Waze to Google Ads technology. As such, few roles have been removed to live up to the update in the system.
Google’s announcement in December:
In December, the search engine giant announced that it plans to include Waze in the Google Geo division. It comprises services like Street View, Google Earth, and Google Maps. Even with no plans for layoffs, there were worries that this modification would inevitably result in Waze’s demise as a stand-alone program. However, then, no job cuts were on the agenda.
Bloomberg News reports that Google bought Waze for $1.3 billion in 2013. However, until 2021, it continued to exist separately from Google Maps. However, that changed in September of last year when Google CEO Sundar Pichai said he was trying to make the company productive due to pressure from investors.
In January, 12,000 people, or 6% of the workforce, had to go, according to Bloomberg News, which quotes Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Google aims to reduce costs since there has been a drop in revenue from plunging digital advertising.
