Alphabet’s Google has expanded employee buyout offers to several countries this year as it looks to rein in rising costs amid heavy spending on artificial intelligence.
Google announced the packages in mid-June and gave responses by mid-July to employees who applied, they said. “This past summer, in June, we expanded this program globally in a few countries to support our important work ahead. Staff who accepted received one month’s salary for each year of service, up to a maximum of 12 months.
“In 2025, some of our teams introduced a voluntary exit program with severance,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement.
The move comes amid mounting AI spending that has unnerved Wall Street and dented Alphabet’s stock price. Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi has repeatedly highlighted AI and cloud computing as key hiring priorities in quarterly earnings presentations. Employees in Google Cloud and AI unit DeepMind have been excluded from past buyout offers.
Microsoft last week offered voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees in an effort to contain costs. In Switzerland, where Google employs about 5,000 people and has a major engineering hub in Zurich, three people familiar with the matter said the program covered multiple divisions but excluded DeepMind.
Employees began leaving in August after Google offered voluntary exit packages in the country, the people said.
