Google to cut a further 200 jobs

Google has admitted to a string of mistakes which have forced the company to make another 200 redundancies globally in its third round of job cuts.

In a posting on its own blog, the internet search engine announced the decision to make further redundancies within its 20,000-strong global workforce, bringing the total number of job losses to 640 in the past 12 months.

The blog, posted by Omid Kordestani, Google’s senior vice-president of global sales and development, said: “Google has grown very quickly in a very short period of time. When companies grow that quickly it’s almost impossible to get everything right – and we certainly didn’t.

“In some areas we’ve created overlapping organisations which not only duplicate effort but also complicate the decision-making process. That makes our teams less effective and efficient than they should be. In addition, we over-invested in some areas in preparation for the growth trends we were experiencing at the time.”

The job cuts will take place globally affecting the sales and marketing teams, with half of the positions expected to go in the US, according to the New York Times.

The blog continued: “Making changes of this kind is never easy – and we recognise that the recession makes the timing even more difficult for the Googlers concerned.

“We did look at a number of different options but ultimately concluded that we had to restructure our organisations in order to improve our effectiveness and efficiency as a business.”

In April 2008, Google made 300 redundancies following its acquisition of DoubleClick, and this year the online company has made a further 100 recruiters redundant and cut 40 jobs after closing its radio advertising department.

None of the job cuts so far have been in the UK.