Google LayOff New Parents: Married Couple and 4-Month-Old Baby Blindsided

A husband and wife with a four-month-old baby said they were both affected by massive Google layoffs on Friday.

Allie and Steve, who asked to be called only by their first names but whose identities are known to Insider, both moved to California six years ago when Allie started working for the tech giant. Steve started working for the company about two years later.

The couple, who were high school sweethearts, were due to have their first child in the fall of 2022. Ellie took parental leave a while back and plans to be away for about eight months in total. Steve took two months of paternity leave at the end of 2022 and was due to take two more in March.

Google announced on Friday that it would be laying off around 12,000 employees, or about 6% of its workforce. Ellie and Steve were among those affected, they told Insider. Both learned that they had been fired at the same time.

Google’s layoffs come at a time when other tech giants are also making drastic cuts in their workforce. Twitter, under new owner Elon Musk, is set to lay off thousands of workers at the end of 2022.

Another Google employee told Insider that she was fired just days before she was due to go on maternity leave.

Google employees expressed shock at the sudden and impersonal nature of the layoffs, which took place via email. Some managers were not even informed before the mass layoffs took place.

Allie was the head of marketing at Google, while Steve was the head of search operations. Allie said they “didn’t really see each other every day at work,” as they worked in different buildings, but would occasionally have lunch together and ride Google’s bike paths. Used to, Eli said.

Ally said she “thoroughly” enjoyed her “six wonderful years” working with the company, particularly praising the benefits to her partners and employees. Steve said that Google has invested a lot of time and money in its people. Perhaps ironically, the generous parental leave was one of the things that attracted both employees to Google.

Allie said there was an “overwhelming response” to news of their layoffs, with people from Google and other companies offering jobs in some cases.

The couple said they plan to use their double dismissal as an opportunity to develop their own business. He created White Cube Media, which creates animated explainer videos for businesses, in 2014 and used to work there in his spare time.

Allie said she didn’t mind balancing it with her full-time jobs at Google, which gave her the security and continuity she needed to grow her business. He worked late nights and weekends at White Cube Media, and even while on vacation in Hawaii, Mexico and Amsterdam, he said.

“We are very hard workers,” Eli said. “It doesn’t even sound like work to us.”

But now Allie and Steve can work full-time at the company, they told Insider. “It was the boost we needed,” Eli said.