Google is not down with its downsizing ambitions just yet. Google is offering voluntary buyouts once again in 2025, providing Core employees with an opportunity to leave the organization on a peaceful note. Reportedly Google is trimming its staff for its AI priorities, and the offer of buyouts isn’t limited to a single department. Google employee exit incentives have been offered to workers in the knowledge and information, as well as engineering units, according to CNBC, as well as its marketing, research, and communications teams.
Google’s internal restructuring efforts do not come as a surprise but it is important to note that it appears to be one of the few companies using buyouts as a way to downsize. For the most part, layoffs in the industry have been occurring in a more haphazard way with employees being asked to leave regardless of performance or an internal desire to do so. Alternatively, Microsoft has been tightening up its performance evaluation criteria to cull its least productive employees, even if they aren’t “unproductive” per se.
(Image: Pexles)
The Google Voluntary Buyouts in 2025 Continue—More Employees Are on Their Way Out
Major players in the tech industry have been on a mission to bring down the headcount over the last few years and Google is no different although its approach to the cuts has been less aggressive. Google’s voluntary exit program primarily affects employees in the US, where employees in targeted departments have the choice to accept the company’s exit offer and leave the organization before the company begins conducting active cuts.
Google’s Knowledge and Information Teams Take a Hit
The time, Google’s workforce reduction plans extend to the Knowledge and Information teams, which contain employees working on the organization’s search, ad, and commerce initiatives. This is one of the company’s most lucrative areas of business so the exit offer to the departments is out of character, but it’s possible that the team numbers are more inflated than the company requires it to be.
The unit reportedly has 20,000 employees which is an impressive number to say the least. The company sent out an internal memo to the teams informing them of the voluntary buyout offer, indicating that employees who were failing to meet their goals should consider taking up the offer and those who were excited by the work at the organization and were performing well should really consider staying on.
The Google voluntary buyouts were also extended to employees in the Marketing, Research, and Communication teams. The internal memo was shared on Tuesday and it’s unclear how many are expected to take the offer and leave and if Google has a goal it aims to meet via its employee exit incentives.
An RTO Policy Is Also On the Table, Contributing to Their Decision
As Google trims its staff for AI priorities, the company is also joining its competitors in mandating employees come back to the office. The RTO policy currently requires workers to come to the office three days a week. Employees who were previously awarded permanent work-from-home status have been asked to switch to the hybrid work model and rejoin their colleagues at their office desks.
The policy is not as stringent as some other organizations that have mandated a four-day or full-time return, but it does put some employees in a difficult position. All remote employees in the targeted teams who live within 50 miles of “an approved return site” will have to return to the organization to comply with the hybrid schedule.
Recent RTO policies have been seen less as a way to build camaraderie between colleagues who work in person and more as a way to encourage employees who are unsatisfied with the switch to quit on their own. There’s no way to tell if that is the case with Google’s RTO policy, but when paired with the voluntary buyouts and Google’s workforce reduction ambitions, it could be the reason for the reduced allowance of flexibility.
Google’s Offer of Voluntary Buyouts Is a Preferred Alternative to Direct Job Cuts
Google’s decision to offer voluntary buyouts to employees is a solution offered by the employees themselves. In a letter to the CEO earlier in the year, workers requested that the organization consider its alternatives, including buyout offers, before it started its rampant cuts for the year. It appears the CEO took the letter seriously, and Google has been offering its employee exit incentives more openly since.
Google’s internal restructuring efforts in the Pixel and Android hardware units were also led by buyout offers but it is believed the number of employees who took the offer was not enough to satisfy the company. Google conducted layoffs within the teams a few weeks later. In the memo to US-based Core Googler, it was made clear that Google’s AI staffing realignment was not the cause for the cuts but a way to “use this opportunity to create internal mobility and fresh growth opportunities for Core Googlers.”
Whatever the reason for Google’s voluntary buyout, AI shift or not, it appears that such offers are more favorable to employees. While the end result is the same—employees leave the organization with severance pay—for many, the opportunity to choose their own path serves them better. The offer does come with the risk of top talent also making their exit instead of the lower performers, but it might be a risk worth taking if employees are already considering leaving the organization.
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