A Googler who's 8 months pregnant said her 'heart sank' when she found out she'd lost her job in its

A Google employee who's eight-months pregnant said she couldn't "control her shaky hands" after finding out she'd lost her job in the mass layoffs announced on Friday. Katherine Wong told Insider she'd worked at Google as a program manager since November 2021 and was due to go on maternity leave next week.

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  • On Friday, Google's CEO said the company was laying off about 12,000 staff.
  • Katherine Wong, who's 34 weeks pregnant, found out she'd lost her job as a program manager.
  • Wong wrote on LinkedIn: "The first thought that came to my mind was "Why me? Why now?"

A Google employee who's eight-months pregnant said she couldn't "control her shaky hands" after finding out she'd lost her job in the mass layoffs announced on Friday.

Katherine Wong told Insider she'd worked at Google as a program manager since November 2021 and was due to go on maternity leave next week. 

On Friday, Google said it was laying off about 12,000 employees, or some 6% of its global workforce.

In a post on LinkedIn, Wong said her "heart sank" when she checked her phone and discovered that she was "one of the impacted 12,000."

She wrote: "The first thought that came to my mind was "Why me? Why now?""

Wong, who lives in San Leandro, California, said her "first instinct" as a program manager was to "make a plan" for the future. However, this would be "one of the most difficult projects" she'd ever handled because "the timing is really bad."

At 34-weeks pregnant, Wong said it's "almost impossible" to look for a new job.

Despite getting laid off, Wong said she loved the company and particularly her team at Google Domains. She said her coworkers felt like "family" and was grateful they've still "got my back."

"Texts and calls have been flooding in for the whole day. People are concerned about my baby and wellbeing," Wong wrote on LinkedIn.

Although she appreciated the "opportunities and growth" she had at Google, Wong told Insider she was unsettled by its decision to lay off "a woman at her last bit of pregnancy."

In his memo to staff announcing the layoffs, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said he took "full responsibility for the decisions that led us here."

"Over the past two years we've seen periods of dramatic growth," he wrote. "To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today."

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

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