Google says it is doubling in the office.
The Alphabet Inc GOOG,
unit said it would spend $ 7 billion this year to expand its office and data center footprint in the US, including $ 1 billion in its home state of California. The search engine giant said it would hire at least 10,000 new full-time employees over the year in anticipation of a recovery from a pandemic in the US.
The spending commitment follows a slowdown in investment by Google about a year ago, when the magnitude of the Covid-19 crisis began to take shape. Last April, Alphabet and Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai told staff in a memo that Google would delay hiring during the pandemic.
Like other major tech companies, Google has seen a major boom over the past year, benefiting from an accelerated shift in online ad spend. Despite that growth, planned US investments for 2021 are below pre-pandemic levels; it invested an average of $ 11 billion a year in 2018 and 2019.
An expanded version of this article appears on WSJ.com
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