Google Taiwan is reducing its workforce as the company continues to adjust operations to improve efficiency and focus resources on core goals, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) reported yesterday.
The Alphabet Inc unit said the organizational adjustments have begun and would continue, even though it did not put a figure on the number of potential job cuts or specify the affected departments in its Taiwan operations.
The company’s response came after rumors circulated on social media about major job cuts at Google Taiwan.
Photo: CNA
Some posts said the downsizing would target the company’s consumer electronics-related departments and high-level roles, and some even speculated a cut of 30 percent to 50 percent of staff, the Liberty Times reported.
There were also posts pointing to Google’s hardware research and development (R&D) office at the Taipei Far Eastern Telecom Park in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋) as likely to be hardest hit, the report said.
The Banciao R&D center is Google’s largest hardware engineering hub outside the US.
Despite the rumors, a senior Google official said last week that the company plans to expand its artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure R&D center in Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) and increase its office space by 60 percent.
The company would increase its investment in Taiwan as local partners take on a growing role in developing its AI infrastructure, Google senior vice president and chief technologist for AI and infrastructure Amin Vahdat said on Wednesday last week at a media session after delivering a speech at the Semicon Taiwan trade show in Taipei.
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