Google to Lay Off 100 Recruiters

Google is laying off 100 recruiters and closing some engineering offices, as the downturn continues to take its toll. The layoffs, disclosed Wednesday in company blog posts, are a very rare step for Google, which said in October that it is still hiring, but much more cautiously. The company has also recently let go a significant number of contractors in areas ranging from public relations to engineering, according to Reuters and WSJ

Update 1 (1-14-2009): According to official Google blog: “Our first step to address this was to wind down almost all our contracts with external contractors and vendors providing recruiting services for Google. However, after much consideration, we have with great regret decided that we need to go further and reduce the overall size of our recruiting organization by approximately 100 positions.”