On the Google blog announced that Google will cut 100 jobs in there recruiting sector.
“Given the state of the economy, we recognized that we needed fewer people focused on hiring,” Laszlo Bock
In a separate post, Google said it would close its engineering offices in Austin, Texas; Trondheim, Norway and Lulea, Sweden, a step the company said would affect 70 workers.
“Our strong desire is to keep as many of these 70 engineering employees at Google as possible,” wrote Google’s vice-president for engineering and research, Alan Eustace.
The jobs cuts follow news last week where Google announced it would reduce the numbers of temporary workers (but not cut back on free cafeterias). Google cuts temporary workers but murky on details.
“Our long-term goal is not to trim the number of people we have working on engineering projects or reduce our global presence, but create a smaller number of more effective engineering sites,” Alan Eustace added.
100 jobs are not even close to 1% of Google’s workforce, but it does suggest a significant downward trend for the pre-eminent search company. At SES Chicago I got told tthat Google has for the first time ever given Google Partners a Cookie rather than a gift certificate, and the $1000 Christmas bonus for employees got cut down to a $400 cell phone. My guess everybody got a G1, not a bad present but quite a bit less than what Google employees are used to.
With Google feeling the heat from the recession and cutting down on projects and employees, is there a chance that we will see a change in Search Engine Land?
As an example, Baidu in China is proving a hard nut to crack for Google. Just last year Baidu formed a Strategic Alliance with Omniture. Omniture will help with the Ad experience to increase the Ad revenue of Baidu. China became one of the largest search markets in the world within the last few years and it is growing rapidly.
If you look at the G Stock chart you can see that Google is really feeling the recession. Once the company the seemed sure to grow year after year, now it seems not even they are safe from the major changes in the economy.
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