Google's longtime director of news let go after 13 years, plans to come back to India

New Delhi, July 24

Google, which has joined the league of tech companies cutting jobs to deal with the global slowdown, has now laid off the Indian-origin director of news after nearly 13 years of service.

Madhav Chinnappa, Director of News Ecosystem Development at Google in the UK, wrote in a LinkedIn post, "I am leaving Google as part of the Google layoffs. I am on gardening leave at the moment which allows too much time to contemplate work, career, life etc."

He expressed pride in what he has accomplished during his nearly 13 years at Google.

"From Digital News Initiative (which wasn’t just a Fund - though a wise person did say that it helped kickstart a European media R&D culture) to the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenges - and of course Ludovic Blecher’s brilliant idea: JERF, the Journalism Emergency Relief Fund which showcased the best of Google: helping where it could when a vulnerable part of the news ecosystem needed it most and involving 300 Googlers," Chinnappa added.

Further in the post, Chinnappa mentioned that he plans to take a month off before exploring new opportunities or considering the next steps in his career.

"In the near term, I have some pressing family issues that need my fuller attention, so in the spirit of the Zen proverb that the tea cup must be empty before it can be full, I will take August off, then spend September looking after my mum in India and only start thinking about work in October with a view to doing more things in 2024."

Around 12,000 people were affected worldwide by the mass layoffs Google announced in January this year, and again last month, the company announced job cuts at its mapping app Waze.

The layoffs announced by Google in January this year affected around 12,000 people worldwide.

Last month, the tech giant announced to lay off employees from its navigation and mapping company Waze, as it aims to merge mapping products.

The company is moving Waze over to Google's ads system which means there will be job cuts at Waze in "sales, marketing, operations and analytics," reports CNBC.