Technology giant Google (GOOG, GOOGL) announced on Thursday that it will spend $ 7 billion this year expanding its U.S. footprint, which will add at least 10,000 jobs in a number of cities, including Atlanta, Washington, DC, Chicago and New . York.
The investment contradicts concerns about a possible technological setback in 2021, as the widespread vaccination enables Americans to spend more time outside their homes, and it positions Google as a key contributor to the economic recovery of the COVID-19 downturn.
In addition, the move pushes funds into various metropolitan areas beyond Silicon Valley, helping the business to hire a more inclusive workforce; Although he reaffirmed his commitment to California, where Google will invest $ 1 billion, Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post on Thursday.
“We are investing aggressively in the US in 2021,” Ruth Porat, chief financial officer of Google’s parent company Alphabet, told Yahoo Finance in a new interview. “We are both building on our existing major centers, and expanding in the US.”
“Not only are we increasing the number of jobs in the US, but in particular we are bringing more jobs and investments to different communities in the US,” she adds.
The investment will enable Google to establish a New York staff in 2028 that was twice as large as ten years earlier, the company said. More generally, the company will distribute the funds across 19 states, including expanding the data center in Nebraska, South Carolina, Virginia, Nevada and Texas.
‘It’s a journey’
Although she praised the announcement of the potential benefits to Google’s diversity, Porat acknowledged that the company still needed to improve a lot.
A diversity report released by Google last year found that black employees make up just 3.7% of the total workforce and 2.6% of leadership positions; meanwhile, Latinx employees make up only 5.9% of the workforce and 3.7% of the leaderships.
“There is quite a bit of work to be done,” Porat says. “We continue to make sure we put all the elements in place so we can grow a workforce that reflects the world around us.”
“This is a journey that has the highest priority for us,” she adds. “We continue to work on it.”
Google achieved strong performance in the second half of 2020, in part due to a surge in search revenue from search and YouTube with hundreds of millions of Americans sitting at home on digital devices. The company ended the year with tremendous revenue in the fourth quarter, with $ 56.9 billion, an increase of 23% over the same period last year.
But the company is also facing three antitrust lawsuits, including one from the Department of Justice and another from 38 attorneys general.
Porat spoke to Yahoo Finance editor-in-chief Andy Serwer in an episode of ‘Influencers with Andy Serwer’, a weekly series of interviews with business, politics and entertainment leaders.
She joined Google as chief financial officer in 2015, after more than a decade in senior banking roles at Morgan Stanley. While helping Google navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, Porat used her background in crisis management.
To begin her career, she took a role at Morgan Stanley weeks before the 1987 market crash; and later she advised the Treasury Department on the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the New York Federal Reserve Bank on AIG during the 2008 financial crisis.
In a conversation with Yahoo Finance, Porat said that the increase in investment in the US will not detract from Google’s plans to expand its operations abroad.
“We are definitely going to continue to grow globally,” she says. “I want to emphasize that we are just very proud of the continued growth we have here in the US.”
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