Marketing Pilgrim

By: Carrie Hill

It might be just a dirty rumor – but in light of the economic woes of many large corporations we cant be that surprised that Google could be laying workers off.  An article over at WebGuild speculates that Google’s job cuts were affecting nearly 10,000 workers.

Note the article says it “affects” nearly 10,000 workers.  If you read the fine print – it doesn’t look like we’ll see 10,000 people walking out the door with their desks in boxes.  By moving temporary workers around and reclassifying certain jobs as “temporary” Google has reported having around 20,000 employees to the SEC.  In actuality – including temporary jobs – they’re looking at closer to 30,000 – according to the WebGuild article. The reshuffling of workers seems to be an effort to make the productivity per employee more stable – something Wall Street looks at when analyzing various corporations.

Along with the alleged job reclassification and job cut speculation, Google received a “sell” rating today – something many analysts would rather have seen when stock prices were $500 to $700 a share.  The lack of consumer spending has lead to a decrease in paid ad clicks – potentially cutting into Google’s projected profit margin. Even with a sell rating, Wall Street does expect Google to be one of the first companies to bounce back when the market stabilizes.

Just one year ago, on November 6, 2007, Google saw it’s highest stock price of $741.79 per share. Today it closed at $259.56 a share.

Carrie Hill is the SEO Team leader for Blizzard Internet Marketing where she specializes in optimizing travel, tourism and accommodations websites.

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