Google layoff: Employee discovered about job loss while feeding newborn daughter at 2 am

By Team Newsable | First Published Jan 31, 2023, 4:34 PM IST

Former Googler Nicholas Dufau said he felt "acutely expendable" after being laid off via email. He wrote on LinkedIn that he discovered he'd lost his job while feeding his newborn daughter at 2 a.m. "I received a notification that I had lost access to my Google corporate accounts," he added.

A former Google employee said that while caring to his infant daughter, he learned of his layoff. Nicholas Dufau, a Los Angeles-based lawyer who was on parental leave after his daughter was born in the early hours of January 17, was working as the associate product counsel for Google for the past six months.

"I became a parent on Tuesday morning at two in the morning. My Google coworkers sent me virtual confetti and heart emoticons the next day to wish me luck on my paternity leave. When my baby needed to be fed at two in the morning on Friday, I got a message that I had lost access to my Google business accounts. I had been laid off via automated email," Dufau said.

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He noted that his six-month employment at Google came to an end last week. During that time, he was a member of a team made up of bright, motivated, and hospitable people who welcomed him into the Google family.

“They reassured me that the company was one that treasured its employees and encouraged me to take the full extent of my parental leave to cherish this precious time with my family. I had never been so thankful to find myself on a team that valued me as a person," Dufau said.

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Every layoff is painful, he said, but the timing of my experience made me feel foolish as well as profoundly expendable. “Fortunately, many of my former colleagues have reached out with warmest wishes and sympathies, all while they continue to navigate what I’m sure are tumultuous times at Google," he added.

Recently, Google parent Alphabet made the decision to slash 12,000 positions, or 6% of its global workforce. Recently, 18,000 and 10,000 jobs were slashed at Amazon and Microsoft, respectively.

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