After declaring the most significant layoffs in their history, U.S. big tech companies have difficulty reducing their European headcount.
In the U.S., companies made widespread job cuts. Meanwhile, Europe's labor protections shield employees from mass layoffs among tech companies without prior consultations with employee interest groups, Bloomberg reports.
In France and Germany, labor laws are among the strongest in the E.U. Google is currently negotiating with works councils to negotiate with management about workforce issues.
In France, Google parent Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is in talks to reduce headcount through voluntary departures, offering severance packages.
Amazon.Com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) has tried to get some senior managers there to resign by offering up to one year's pay and has granted leave to departing employees so their shares can vest for distribution as bonuses.
Due to the requirements, Google branches in Germany and France will be some of the last locations to be affected by the cuts, if even at all.
Google acknowledged the negotiations and added that it was not planning on implementing layoffs in Romania, Greece, or Austria. The same holds good in Paris, where Google has around 1,600 employees.
By contrast, in the U.K., where labor protections are not as severe, an estimated 500 out of 8,000 Googlers will have to leave. The same is true in Dublin, where unions claim that Google is planning to oust 240 employees, and in Zurich, where...
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