“We’ve started moving Waze’s current advertising system to Google Ads technology to provide Waze advertisers with a better, more seamless experience over time,” a company representative for Seeking Alpha said. We have reduced the duties involved in monetizing Waze Ads as part of this shift, and we are providing employees with mobility help and severance options in compliance with local laws.
It was announced in December 2022 that Google was integrating its Waze and Maps mapping teams because it was under financial strain.
According to a Dec. 8 report with The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the company will combine the more than 500 Waze personnel with Geo, the division in charge of Maps, Google Earth, and Street View.
The WSJ at the time stated that there were no layoffs anticipated.
About six months ago, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, announced that it was eliminating 12,000 positions across all of its product categories, departments, and geographic areas.
In a statement to staff members on Jan. 20, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said, “Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth.” “To match and fuel that growth,” the company said, “we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”
Google has observed inconsistent advertising outcomes, prompting the revelation that the most recent layoffs will concentrate on responsibilities related to Waze Ads monetization.
The “search and other” income within Google Advertising increased by 2% year over year in April, according to Philipp Schindler, senior vice president and chief business officer at Google. This growth was mostly attributable to a rise in the travel and retail sectors.
