Google To Slash Down 300 Jobs

In a record setting layoff ever in Google’s history, there is going to be a cut of about 300 jobs from the recently acquired advertising company; DoubleClick.

Goggle acquired DoubleClick on March 11th. It professes the layoff to be a natural follow-through of the acquisition, as the company has been working to match and align DoubleClick employees in the U.S. with its organizational plan for the business. However, the company declines to confirm the exact number of layoffs.

The cut would be seen by the American operations of DoubleClick. There are about 1200 American workers in Double click and the layoff would mean firing a one fourth of them. The company has about 1,500 employees worldwide, and the chief executive of Google, Eric E. Schmidt, has suggested that job cuts would also affect the overseas operations of DoubleClick, at a later date.

Some DoubleClick employees are being laid off Wednesday, while others are being offered transitional roles, Google said. The transitional roles too would end after the two companies are fully integrated.

Google is also planning to sell Performics Search Marketing, another DoubleClick unit, that helps marketers place ads on search engines, including those owned by Google and its main rivals, Yahoo and Microsoft.

However, the company plans to retain the affiliate marketing portion of the Performics unit, which helps advertisers establish networks of Web sites that can refer customers to them.

Mr. Phillips did not identify a buyer but said he had “received preliminary interest” from a number of Google’s existing partners.

Amidst debates of whether the cuts are justified or not, whether the layoff is too huge or minor considering Google’s size; there are chances of further scale down given the rising expenses, concerned share holders and areas of overlap between the two companies.