Analysts discuss the potential impact of Google’s mass layoff on its cloud services.  Google shared plans to lay off 12,000 employees last week, citing the current economic downturn and decisions to over-hire as the main reasons. Despite a slowdown in other company divisions, Google Cloud has remained lucrative, having experienced a 38% growth in revenue YoY in Oct. 2022, compared to Alphabet’s overall revenue growth of only 6%.  Hyoun Park, a principal analyst at Amalgam Insights, believes Google’s layoffs could have a detrimental effect on Google Cloud services after laying off technical staff from the cloud division “despite it being a growing business for the company.”  Park also cautioned of an over-reliance on automation, which may not be able to sustain the large scale of Google Cloud’s infrastructure, stating that “cloud takes a lot of people to support.”  Finally, Park criticized the prioritization of investors and shareholders over a company’s service quality and innovation. Gene Munster, a managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, holds a different opinion and referred to the layoffs as “healthy for the company as companies should be focused on growing revenue faster than headcount.”