I don't understand how the article states this and concludes Google is cutting staff:

>A Google spokesman said almost 95% of employees who expressed interest in staying with the company found new roles within the notice period. Alphabet had 174,014 employees at the end of the second quarter, up 20.8% from the previous year.

This is the norm in Australia. You cannot fire people except for misconduct. Here they abolish your role or department due to business restructuring which is legal. Since your role is gone the company has to provide a redeployment opportunity to the impacted employees to other possible roles in the company. In a honest restructuring this works and some people do get other roles, some managers like to retain staff they like or are buddy with and are "appointed" to other role. After a specified period like 30 days if there is no suitable role for you the company will make you redundant and your will leave the company.

I believe they mean jobs within Google for the folks whose entire team is being dissolved, but aren't being laid off directly. I recall something similar during my time there, when the Google Play team was merged with the YouTube Music team.

This was standard practice at my former old school tech company employer. People were "redeployed" and given 30-90 days to apply for new roles, with many unable to get jobs secured in time they were let go with minimal severance.

"quiet fired"

Or better yet, give them hope, then take it away