Regardless of how large, powerful and influential a company is, no one is recession-proof. Internet search giant Google has been laying off employees since this summer, and it has been doing so under the news radar for the most part. The SEC requires companies to disclose information regarding layoffs but apparently Google had slipped around the rule and reported its Q3 earnings as expected by saying it had cut down on “operational expenses”. Though Google officially has 20,123 employees, there are an additional 10,000 which are just labeled as temporary operational expenses. However it wants to label those human beings, they are still going to get shafted and are still going to be hurt by this massive cut in manpower. Google’s very own Sergey Brin says, “There is no question that the number (of workers) is too high”.
Though some of these employees are temporary, they have faithfully been employed by Google for several years. The method in which it has kept temporary status and slipped under the SEC radar is by constantly moving employees around to different jobs every so often, thus retaining the temporary employee label and holding on to the bodies nonetheless. They are full time employees without full time benefits. While it’s unfortunate that many of these employees are being let go, they did last longer and enjoy more benefits (Google’s facilities) than most temps do. Times are getting tough and it shows – that’s actually water, not the usual Cristal, in Brin and Page’s hot tub.
