incrediBILL - 9:01 pm on Jan 22, 2010 (gmt 0)

Still, I don't think there was a massive layoff at Google.

When you aren't dealing with real employees, it's contractors, technically it's not a layoff so it was pretty much under the radar.

Do you believe Forbes?

Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry says his contacts are telling him Google has let go 3,000 contract employees.

[forbes.com...]

Here's another source:

Last week we learned Google laid off 5,000+ contractors and tried to keep it out of the news.

[thedailyanchor.com...]

Also note the TheDailyAnchor piece mentioned some of the Google office closures which offered to relocate people to other Google locations, if you failed to relocate then you technically "quit", another way of laying people off without it actually being a layoff and keeping it under the radar.

What about all those HR people (googlers, contractors, etc.) dumped at the curb from the 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.

[googleblog.blogspot.com...]

Or more recently, sales and marketing people via the Business Insider?

A Google blog post puts the number at 200. Our source says its more, but the disparity might have something to do with firing contractors, who aren't technically Google employees.

[businessinsider.com...]

I could continue to quote from more sources about other events but I think I've made my point.

Probably up to 1K actually Googlers and many thousands of contractors and vendors.

Google shattered a lot of lives to make those numbers.

Don't be evil?

Who are we kidding, it's all for the bottom line.

Strictly business ;)