San Francisco, Jan 16 (IANS): Google has laid off more than 1,000 employees in the latest round of job cuts announced by the company, media reports said on Tuesday.

The company laid off workers in several departments, including Google’s hardware, central engineering teams, and Google Assistant.

In an email sent to laid-off employees, it said that the decision was difficult and regretted informing them about the layoffs.

The company has also mentioned that severance pay will be provided to eligible employees.

Google also allowed workers to reapply for select opportunities in other departments, with those who fail to re-secure a position being required to leave the company in April, according to media reports.

The email indicated that outplacement services would be provided to laid-off Google employees, along with state unemployment information.

In January last year, Google cut its workforce by 12,000 people, or around 6 per cent of its full-time employees.

The tech giant also made other job cuts to its recruiting and news divisions later in the year.

Just two weeks into the New Year, at least 46 IT and tech companies (including startups) have laid off more than 7,500 employees and the number is growing by the day, as generative AI (GenAI) threatens millions of jobs.

According to the latest data from layoff.fyi, a website that tracks tech sector job cuts, 46 tech companies laid off 7,528 employees (till January 14).