> Google has ~194,000 employees, up nearly 10,000 from last year ...

https://www.warntracker.com/?company=google

blabla calculate summarize, Google has laid off between 1% and 2% of its employees monthly since "the 12000" (since 2023) on average. Btw: on that page you can also see that "the 12000" is a misnomer and it was closer to 20000 individuals.

If the total number of employees is going up (as you say, it is) then the obvious explanation is that there must be a massive move underway moving headcount from one location to another ...