Google’s parent Alphabet Inc has decided to lay off about 12,000 jobs or 6% of its workforce. The company’s shares rose 3% in pre-market trading is now making cuts as the company is confronting some threats.

Alphabet has attracted major talents to build Google, YouTube and other products that have become very successful now and has garnered millions of users but now it is competing against Microsoft Corp and the decision of job cuts came right after Microsoft decided to lay off 10,000 employees. The job cuts are global and the employees who have been laid off have already received the emails, this process will take much longer in other countries than U.S. due to local employment laws and practices. The cut off will immediately affect US.

Sundar Pichai stated that “these are important moments to sharpen our focus, reengineer our cost base, and direct our talent and capital to our highest priorities”. He had also mentioned in his letter that there will be job cuts in US and other unspecified countries.

In the U.S. employees who are laid off will be paid for the notification period, 2022 bonuses and remaining vacation time. Google will also be providing a severance package starting at 16 weeks plus 2 additional weeks for every year the employee worked in Google along with it they will get health care, job placement facility and immigration support.

Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai stated that the cuts were being made due to a change in ‘economic reality’ he also stated that a rigorous review was done across products and functions and the roles that will be eliminated reflect the outcome of the review.