Forum Moderators: goodroi
[webguild.org...]
Google has been quietly laying off staff and up to 10,000 jobs could be on the chopping block according to sources. Since August, hundreds of employees have been laid off and there are reports that about 500 of them were recruiters for Google.
AdSense publishers brace for shockwave:
There is no question the economic downturn is hitting Google hard and with the slowdown in online advertising, their troubles are just beginning.
It never made any sense to me why they have/had so many employees when the business has not really changed since 2004.
It may not have changed, but it has, for sure, Grown!. And with that there is always a need of more employees
Since August, hundreds of employees have been laid off
If I'm reading the article correctly, it appears that the layoffs are of contractors, rather than of employees. Contractors are hired as temps--at least in theory--and in many cases (I don't know if this applies to Google) they're supplied by outside agencies that specialize in "permatemps."
There's no question that the "contractor" description has been abused in the high-tech industry--remember the Vizcaino v. Microsoft class-action suit that was settled a number of years ago?--but it shouldn't be surprising to see a company shrink its permatemp ranks during an economic slowdown. After all, one of the reasons for using "contractors" is to have staffing flexibility.
(And before anyone accuses me of defending Google or the tech industry's reliance on permatemps, let me point out that I'm merely describing how things are, not how things should be.)
< note - there's also a newer thread here: [webmasterworld.com...] >
[edited by: tedster at 1:55 am (utc) on Nov. 27, 2008]
