Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is laying off employees from its global recruiting team as the tech giant continues to slow hiring, Alphabet said on Wednesday.

The company’s decision to lay off several hundred employees is not part of a large-scale layoff and will allow a large part of the team to be retained for critical positions. It will also help workers find positions within the company and elsewhere.

Alphabet is the first “Big Tech” company to lay off employees this quarter after the likes of Meta, Microsoft and Amazon aggressively cut their workforces in early 2023 as the weak economy ended their hiring waves due to the pandemic.

California-based Alphabet cut about 12,000 jobs in January, reducing its workforce by 6%.

According to a report by the staffing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of layoffs in the US increased threefold in August compared to July and almost quadrupled compared to the previous year.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast new claims for state jobless benefits would rise about 8% in the week ended Sept. 9, after falling 13,000 the previous week to 216,000 in the previous seven-day period periods.