after declaring the most significant layoffs in their history us big tech companies have difficulty reducing their european headcount in the us companies made widespread job cuts meanwhile europes 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 eu google is currently negotiating with works councils to negotiate with management about workforce issues in france google parent alphabet inc goog googl is in talks to reduce headcount through voluntary departures offering severance packages amazoncom inc amzn has tried to get some senior managers there to resign by offering up to one years 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 1600 employees by contrast in the uk where labor protections are not as severe an estimated 500 out of 8000 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 unions anticipate that the number of layoffs will be about 200 amazon alphabet and meta platforms inc meta employ over 170000 fulltime tech workers on the continent and in the uk software engineers often earn half as much as their counterparts in the us at amazon france with about 1500 office employees in paris some senior managers with 5  8 years of experience were offered up to a years pay to leave amazon allowed the departing employees to stay on gardening leave until may when amazon shares vest amazons german arm has started laying off people still in their probationary periods and offering proposals for voluntary departures in luxembourg exiting amazon employees have been offered a months salary per year of service with extra pay determined by national laws price action goog shares traded higher by 119 at 10620 premarket on the last check thursday