Press Coverage

Meghan Day, a Google software engineer who was recently elected treasurer of the Alphabet Workers Union, said workers were demoralized by layoffs at the company in 2023 and 2024 and frequently raised concerns about job security when the group later held employee forums. This year, more than 2,000 employees signed a petition calling for better severance packages and demanding that the company exhaust voluntary buyouts before turning to layoffs.

The Alphabet Workers Union applauded the move as evidence that organizing efforts are influencing corporate policy. “The sustained organizing of Googlers for Job Security over the past year has made it possible for nearly 70,000 Googlers to be granted the option to take a voluntary exit package instead of hundreds of layoffs,” Maria DiPasquale, the union’s communications coordinator, said in a statement.

The Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), which represents employees of Google and its parent company, released a statement in reaction to Amazon’s recent workforce reduction.

For a generative artificial intelligence system to learn how to write an autopsy report, human workers must sort and annotate thousands of crime scene images. The precarious work of training AI, which generally pays just a few dollars, has sparked a movement for better wages and conditions stretching from Kenya to Colombia.

Major employers that historically have hired large numbers of H-1B employees have begun disqualifying job seekers who require H-1B visa sponsorship since President Donald Trump used his executive power to impose a new $100,000 fee on applications for the work visa.

With layoffs and automation eroding the stability traditionally associated with knowledge jobs, the future of white-collar work might include some tried and tested ways to protect one’s job.

Standing in front of Google's office in Lower Manhattan on Monday morning, a small crowd of tech workers had a message for their employer: Say something.

More than 200 contractors who worked on evaluating and improving Google’s AI products have been laid off without warning in at least two rounds of layoffs last month. The move comes amid an ongoing fight over pay and working conditions, according to workers who spoke to WIRED.

The Guardian spoke to 10 current and former AI workers contracted for Google through Japanese conglomerate Hitachi’s GlobalLogic to rate and moderate the output of Google’s AI products, including its flagship chatbot Gemini, launched early last year, and its summaries of search results, AI Overviews.