Google Inc. is closing three engineering offices and cutting 100 recruiters from its work force as the recession dampens hiring at the Internet search company, The Associated Press reported. «Given the state of the economy, we recognized that we needed fewer people focused on hiring,» Laszlo Bock, a Google vice president, wrote in a blog posting today announcing the layoffs. 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. «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,» he added. The layoffs announced represent only a small portion of Google's global work force _ less than 1 percent of the 20,100 total. But the move is a rare blemish on the company's worker-friendly reputation.
