Google laid off 100 workers from its YouTube division as the company reduces staff as part of a restructuring tactic as it incorporates artificial intelligence into its operations.
The cuts mainly affected the creator management and operations teams that manage YouTube’s content creators, marking its first corporate restructuring in a decade. The 100 people whose roles have been eliminated can apply for other positions at YouTube, according to TubeFilter. They have 60 days to find new roles before their dismissals take effect.
The strategy is part of YouTube’s plan to bring its content creator management teams together under one dedicated central leadership in each individual country, instead of spread out around the world and “loosely” connected, according to TubeFilter. The plan was laid out by Mary Ellen Coe, who took over as YouTube’s chief business officer after Robert Kyncl left the company in 2023.
Coe sent an internal staff memo that outlines how the changes will help streamline YouTube’s business as the platform takes on an ever-expanding creator base and further develops its Shorts and generative artificial intelligence tools.
“As we have seen the past few years, our creator base is broadening and diversifying, from our most experienced creators to a new generation of casual creators posting on YouTube for the first time,” wrote Coe. “Gen AI tools will further fuel new forms of creativity and bring even more creators to the platform. As the business evolves, we have an even greater need to ensure we’re running the business effectively and meeting the needs of our users.”
The news comes after Google cut 1,000 jobs from its core engineering team last week, on top of continued layoffs and reorganization attempts during the latter half of 2023. This week, the company also cut several hundred workers from its advertising sales team.
Google isn’t the only tech giant cutting workers this year. Amazon also culled several hundred jobs across its Prime Video, MGM Studios, and Twitch last week. Last week, Discord said it will lay off 17% of its staff, about 170 people, and Unity Software plans to eliminate 25% of its workforce, according to The New York Times. Additionally, Xerox plans to cut 15% of its 23,000 staffers this month.
The changes at YouTube won’t cost any creators their partner manager support, and the platform hopes it will enable the company to provide more support and scale core, country-specific teams. YouTube will split its support team into two groups, one focused on creator-facing support and the other dedicated to customer/user-facing support to allow creators quicker access to specialized support.
YouTube has shuffled teams across the company. All music teams will be consolidated into one global force that reports to Google and YouTube’s head of music, Lyor Cohen. The platform also merged its sports, media, film, and TV teams into a single global unit, which will focus on YouTube TV and NFL Sunday Ticket.
Google’s Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said on January 17 that the company should expect to see cuts throughout the rest of this year, but not as many as it purged in 2023. A year ago, Google began cutting 6%, or 12,000 employees, from its workforce after ballooning up to 182,000 at the end of September, up from 119,000 in December 2019.