Google Is Offering Buyouts to US Employees Throughout the Company

Google is offering buyouts to U.S. employees across multiple divisions of the company, including within its search division. 

The company’s knowledge and information division, which includes Google’s search, advertising, and commerce teams, announced its “voluntary exit program” today, the company told Investopedia. Buyouts have also been offered to the tech titan’s central engineering teams, the company confirmed. 

“Earlier this year, some of our teams introduced a voluntary exit program with severance for U.S.-based Googlers, and several more are now offering the program to support our important work ahead,” Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini wrote in a statement. 

“A number of teams are also asking remote employees who live near an office to return to a hybrid work schedule in order to bring folks more together in-person,” Mencini added.

Google’s latest move to reduce headcount comes after multiple rounds of layoffs in 2024, and a major push at the start of 2023 that laid off approximately 12,000 workers, or about 6% of its workforce.

Shares of Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) climbed about 1% Tuesday, leaving them down over 5% for 2025 so far. They were little changed in after-hours trading.