DeepMind Lays Off Staff And Shuts Down Their Canada Office

Alphabet Inc, the holding company of Google will soon close down its DeepMind research lab in Edmonton. They will also lay off some operational staff in the UK as part of their recent cost cutting plans. According to an internal memo circulated the company has also decided to close down their Canadian office. The Edmonton office was the only DeepMind office that did not run out of a Google-managed work space.

The engineers and researchers impacted would be provided with the option to relocate to other offices of the company. The remaining organizational and infrastructure employees will be laid off. The memo also informed that some of the UK staff in the back-office positions will be made redundant.

A DeepMind spokesperson in a statement said, “we have taken the decision to close the Edmonton office, while maintaining its other Canada locations in Montreal and Toronto, which are within Google’s offices.”

On Friday Google said that they would eliminate 12,000 jobs, making them the latest tech giant to restructure after years of hiring and growing. Prior to this employees were speculating a potential layoff and job cuts but they were still surprised by the circular. Sundar Pichai, the Chief Executive office, on Monday told the employees that the job cuts were a decision made as the company’s growth had slowed down.

This is the latest addition to the wave of tech layoffs companies are experiencing due to the turbulent economy. In the last few years tech companies were on a hiring spree as they expanded their team and had a fast growth rate. However, the tables have turned and several employees have been laid off with or without severance.