Google expanded its voluntary severance program in June to some employees in Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Switzerland. The buyouts exclude core artificial intelligence and cloud units, including Google Cloud and DeepMind, and the company has not disclosed how many employees accepted. In Switzerland, eligible employees can receive one month of salary for each year of service, capped at 12 months. Alphabet employed 204,757 people at the end of September, approximately 10,000 more than six months earlier, while its capital expenditure reached $51.4 billion in the third quarter, mostly for artificial intelligence infrastructure. The program’s possible expansion to additional countries and future changes in Alphabet’s headcount remain to be seen.
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