On Friday, Alphabet, the parent company of search giant Google, announced it would be laying off 12,000 employees across its global operations. The layoffs amount to more than 6% of the tech company’s workforce, and come after years of robust growth and aggressive hiring.

Sundar Pichai, the company’s CEO, noted the company has been expanding its workforce rapidly in recent years, “for a different economic reality than the one we face today.” In an email to employees he wrote that he takes “full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.”

Alphabet is just the latest in a string of tech giants announcing layoffs as concerns rise that the global economy may be heading for a slowdown or even a recession. Microsoft just announced this week it would be laying off 10,000 workers, and before that Amazon, Meta Platforms, Salesforce, and Twitter all engaged in significant downsizing.

Alphabet’s downsizing is reportedly going to affect employees throughout the company, including in the recruiting division, as well as some corporate positions, engineering positions, and some of the product teams. It was reported by Reuters the company’s memo on the downsizing noted it will have an immediate effect on US staff.

Alphabet investors had been pressuring the company to engage in a more aggressive strategy to cut spending.

TCI Managing Director Chris Hohn had noted the company’s workforce had swelled 20% per year since 2017, adding, “The company has too many employees and the cost per employee is too high.”

Earlier in the year, the biotech division of Alphabet, Verily, cut 15% of its workforce.