The world is witnessing mass layoffs at companies that have so far affected millions across the globe due to a potential fear of recession. A number of Google employees protested in the United States to draw attention towards the labor conditions of the sub-contracted workers who were recently laid off. One of the protests was staged on February 1, 2023 at Google’s headquarters in California. Another protest was staged at the corporate offices of Google in New York City on February 2, 2023.
It was reported that about 50 of the Google employees had protested outside the Ninth Avenue store in New York. This happened soon after the parent company Alphabet had announced its fourth-quarter profits of $13.6 billion. A number of its employees are criticizing the company to bank on its profits after laying off its employees. More reports revealed that both the protests were organized by the Alphabet Workers Union and included the employees and sub-contractors of the search engine giant. During the rally in California, a number of sub-contractors were seen talking about the substandard working conditions that included poverty and wages with no benefits.
Some of the responsibility of the employees had included reviewing of content that was used to assist in training of the AI powered algorithms of the company apart from screening of the YouTube videos and searching advertisements if they have any sensitive or offensive content. The employees have claimed that the remuneration that they are provided are far more below its own minimum standards. The report also mentioned that the benefits are for the direct contract owners.
Alphabet in its fourth quarter reported $76 billion in revenue which came to an end in December 31 and is now expecting from AI. On the other hand Google Cloud attracted a revenue of $7.32 billion that marked a 32 percent increase when compared to the quarter a year ago.
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