Up To 10,000 Google Jobs May Be On Chopping Block

November 28, 2008 11:57 a.m. EST

New York, NY (AHN) - Google's layoffs appear to be larger than previous reports that only 300 employees from DoubleClick were laid off.

According to WebGuild, since August hundreds of Google staff had been laid off, and the number of jobs on the chopping block could rise up to 10,000.

The tech online paper said while Google is mandated by law to disclose layoffs publicly with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the leading online search company could go around the legal requirement by reporting the cut down in its payroll as a reduction in operational expenses.

SEC records list that Google has 20,123 employees, but an extra 10,000 are hidden as temporary workers. Because payments made to these staff are treated as temporary operational expenses, Google could hire and pay them salaries above the minimum wage, but with no benefits and offer of permanent employment.

To keep the 10,000 workers on a temporary status they are moved to different jobs every few months. Most of the 10,000 tempo employees have been rotated so many times for the past 5 to 7 years.

In April, Google confirmed a New York Times report that it laid off 300 employees from its DoubleClick U.S. offices. DoubleClick's total workforce was 2,700, with 1,200 based in the U.S. and the remaining 1,500 in other parts of the world.