MOST SHARED
- Solar Market Heating Back Up?
- Realty Execs See Pain Ahead
- US Becomes Top Country Brand Under Obama: Survey
- Sweeping Health Care Overhaul Bill Passes House
- BoA Board in Civil War Over Lewis' Succesor
- Easy Money & Stocks
- Administration Rejects Plan to Buy Fannie Mae Credits
- Want the Homebuyer's Tax Credit? Here Are Some Tips
- Sweeping Health Care Overhaul Bill Passes House
- For the Jobless, 10% is Harder Than Before
- Week Ahead: Stocks Search for Catalyst in Quiet Week
- Outlook: Dollar Likely to Ride Higher on Bleak Jobs Report
- Geithner: More Stimulus, Not a Bank Tax
- Windfall is Seen as Bank Bonuses are Paid in Stock
- Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Says Net Income Tripled
- Cramer: Earnings, IPOs Dominate Next Week
- Buying Fear: How to Own Volatility
Text Size 
Google, one of the nation's great growth engines for employment, has essentially stopped hiring for the last month, according to several executives at the company.
A spokesperson at the company says there has been no freeze on hiring, but several executives I have spoken with who have hiring responsiblity said it was made clear to them one month ago they were to make no new hires, including at the secretarial level and they were
 |
AP |
In the last two years, Google [GOOG
Loading...
()
] has more than doubled its head count, growing from 9,300 employees to a current full time work force of 20,100 as its earnings and revenues soared.
Google spends lavishly on its employees, who have become accustomed to a slew of privileges from onsite massages to three free gourmet meals a day to a concierge service.
In recent months Google has been cutting back on some perks and in a recent interview following its third quarter earnings CEO Eric Schmidt said the company had slowed its hiring.
Executives at the company tell me the new focus on costs comes from CFO Patrick Pichette, who joined Google in late june.
The key question for investors is whether it is part of an effort to raise margins or respond to a unexpected slowing in on-line advertsing beyond what Google anticpated.
Google dominates on line advertising, but as that market's growth slows so too does Google.
As well, Google is dealing with headwinds from its YouTube and applications businesses, both of which will lose significant sums in the year ahead.
While YouTube is a widely visisted site, given all the video it serves up, it is expensive to run and Google has yet to make signifcant gains in monetizing much of the traffic the site receives.
Advertisers tell me they are reluctant to spend on YouTube because they can not be certain what videos they are going to be delivered with. In a sign of Google's efforts to ramp up ad spending on YouTube, insiders tell me it has incented its workforce that sells ads for the site with a more lucrative compensation structure.
Print
Email
- Rumors abound that Oprah will leave her show to start a new network. What would this mean for daytime TV?
- A private equity specialist sponsored a stand-up comedy troupe in New York to prove that CEOs can, in fact, be funny.
- Cramer did the research and found eight stocks that lead the pack. Read on to get his top picks.
- Did Hideki Matsui’s performance make it more likely that the Yankees will pay to have him back?
- Which wines should you bring—or serve—with holiday meals this year? Ask a connoisseur.
- Two competitors in this year’s World Series of Poker in Las Vegas have stories fit for Hollywood.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes