Google extended a voluntary departure program to employees in Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Switzerland in June, Reuters reported. The company confirmed the expansion but did not say how many workers had accepted the offers.
The program follows similar initiatives introduced for some teams in the United States and the United Kingdom from 2025. A Google spokesperson said certain divisions had offered voluntary severance packages before the program expanded internationally in June 2026.
Alphabet is seeking to manage costs while directing resources toward areas it considers strategic. Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi has identified artificial intelligence and cloud computing as priorities for hiring. Previous voluntary departure offers excluded employees in Google Cloud and DeepMind, and the latest expansion appears to follow the same pattern, according to Reuters.
In Switzerland, where Google employs about 5,000 people and has a major engineering hub in Zurich, the offer covered several divisions but excluded DeepMind, Reuters reported, citing three people familiar with the matter. The company announced the offers in mid-June, informed interested employees of its decisions by mid-July, and began departures in August.
The Swiss package offered one month of salary for each year of service, capped at 12 months. At least four employees in a team of around 50 accepted, according to one source cited by Reuters.
The move comes amid broader cost-control efforts across the technology industry. The report says Microsoft offered voluntary departure programs to 60,000 employees the previous week, while investor concerns about AI spending have weighed on Alphabet shares. Google’s Swiss workforce had also been affected by a separate round of cuts in 2023, when the company laid off more than 200 employees and workers protested and staged a stoppage.
Sources: Olhar Digital.