Bloomberg: Google and Amazon are having trouble with mass layoffs in the EU

Amazon and Google, which have previously announced large-scale staff cuts to cut costs, are experiencing serious problems with the implementation of these plans in Europe. It is reported with reference to its own sources in the companies Bloomberg.

Alphabet intends to lay off 12,000 employees worldwide, and Amazon about 27,000. However, as the agency notes, if in the United States the dismissal of several thousand employees at once is not a big problem for companies, then in the EU it is not so easy to do this because of local laws. Here, Google and Amazon are forced to make numerous concessions and negotiate with workers’ organizations and trade unions so that they approve the plans of the companies.

In France, for example, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) is negotiating to cut headcount through voluntary redundancies, offering severance pay that it hopes will be deemed generous enough to force workers to quit. Amazon does the same. In the case of top managers of the company, the amount of severance bonuses can reach the annual salary. Negotiations between companies and employees in Germany are also not easy. Employees from these two countries will be the last to be laid off, if at all, according to Bloomberg sources.

Google confirmed talks with workers’ councils in Germany and France, adding that the company has no plans to carry out layoffs in Romania, Greece or Austria.

“We are carefully and individually reviewing this issue in each country where reductions are being made to fully comply with local legal requirements, which vary by location, are complex and take time,” a Google spokesperson said. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.

Kirill Sarkhanyants