Google announced on their blog recently that they’ve not only reduced the number of contractors they’re employing but they’re now reducing the number of recruiters on staff by about 100:

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. #

Also, they are displacing up to 70 engineering employees by closing offices in Austin, Texas; Trondheim, Norway; and Lulea, Sweden, Alan Eustace, SVP engineering & research said.

In a Wall Street Journal story commenting on the changes at Google, Jessica Vascellaro reports:

Google spokesman Matthew Furman said the closing of engineering offices in Texas, Norway and Sweden wasn’t motivated by cost cutting and that Google will offer jobs to the 70 employees affected by the changes. Alan Eustace, Google’s senior vice president for engineering and research, wrote in a blog post that the moves would help Google better coordinate its efforts across different geographic areas.Mr. Furman added that the 100 recruiters let go represents less than a quarter of Google’s total recruiter population. “Overall, we will be working with [those recruiters] to try to locate them other jobs at Google,” he said.

He said that the company didn’t have plans to announce any further cuts at this time. In recent months, Google has taken measures such as reducing the hours of its food service and giving employees cellphones instead of year-end cash bonuses.

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