On Wednesday, October 29, 2025, Alphabet announced it will offer voluntary exit packages (VEPs) to Googlers at YouTube. In response, the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) released the following statement:

Just one day after Amazon announced layoffs for 14,000 of its employees, Alphabet made it clear that mandatory layoffs are not inevitable in the tech industry. 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.

The truth is that no Googler wants to find out that their product area is being targeted for cuts. Even when offered a VEP over a mandatory layoff, the move brings fear that involuntary layoffs could follow. Our coworkers on visas worry about the potential impact on permanent resident applications and the PERM process. But what the VEPs and the Googlers for Job Security campaign demonstrate is that when we take action together, things can change.

This week, our employer has been prominent in the headlines as Alphabet stock reached a record high. We, the workers who generate those profits, deserve to feel secure in our employment. While we celebrate the fact that our organizing is working, with our demand to offer voluntary buyouts before mandatory layoffs becoming a new company standard, we know that the fight is far from over.  

We call on our coworkers to join our Googlers for Job Security campaign, fighting for guaranteed severance, buyouts before layoffs, no GRAD quotas, and severance as leave.  

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Alphabet Workers Union-CWA Local 9009 is a union of Alphabet workers in the U.S. and Canada, including full-time employees, temps, vendors, and contractors. For more information, please visit our website, www.alphabetworkersunion.org; Twitter, @alphabetworkers; Facebook, AlphabetWorkers; Bluesky, alphabetworkersunion.org; LinkedIn, Alphabet Workers Union; or Instagram, @alphabetworkers