Google to close Melbourne office

Would never have believed it could happen

[anallawalla]

As reported in the news media and our GOOG forum [webmasterworld.com], Google will close the Melbourne office in the Rialto Towers on 25 April and will "let go" a few key staff. A couple will move to the Sydney office. They have started notifying the larger advertisers such as my employers.

We halved our multi-million $ PPC spend and some other parts of the business did likewise or eliminated it completely. Can't help feeling that a few other businesses are doing likewise and even the mighty G is not immune to the GFC.

Curiously, commentators around the world are suggesting that we may have hit the bottom this week. The Aussie stock markets have been stable for a couple of weeks and all our economic indicators showed a rise on the news tonight.

How's Google doing elsewhere in APAC?

[bill]

Japanese companies tend to cut costs to extreme levels before letting go any staff. Google may be taking a Japanese approach with their offices here. Salary and benefits are usually the first to go.