Google is cutting its sales and marketing team by roughly 200 employees, saying it had over-invested in certain parts of the company.
The move is the Web search leader's latest effort to cut costs amid a tough economy and a broad slowdown in advertising spending. In January, Google laid off about 100 recruiters and it said up to 40 people would be laid off in February, when Google pulled the plug on its radio advertising effort.
"When companies grow that quickly it's almost impossible to get everything right and we certainly didn't," Google senior vice president of Global Sales and Business Development Omid Kordestani said in an announcement posted on Google's blog yesterday.
"In addition, we over-invested in some areas in preparation for the growth trends we were experiencing at the time," he added.
Google has nearly 21,000 employees worldwide with nearly 2,000 employed in Ireland
The Mountain View, California-based company does not disclose how many staff work in sales and marketing and it has not said where the redundancies are likely to take place.
In 2008, 97 per cent of Google's $21.8 billion in revenue came from advertising.
The company's strength in text-based search advertising has shielded it from the difficult conditions plaguing the online display ads that companies like Yahoo Inc and AOL depend on.
Even so, Google's business has not been completely immune. Total sales grew 18 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008 versus 51 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2007.
A Google spokesperson said the company will seek new positions for some of the affected employees, but it will not be able to do so for all of them.
Shares in Google finished regular trade up 2.68 per cent, or $9.22, at $353.29 on Nasdaq yesterday.
Reuters