A reliable source says they’ve heard that Google will be announcing layoffs tomorrow at DoubleClick’s New York City and San Francisco offices. Supposedly, the cuts will be focused on middle management, not sales staff.
We asked Google’s press office about this, and they said the company doesn’t “comment on rumors or market speculation.”
Google announced its intention to buy web advertiser DoubleClick for $3.1 billion a year ago, but the European Union only approved the deal last month. At that time, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt announced that his company would probably cut some of DoubleClick’s staff. (Even before the acquisition, Schmidt acknowledged that Google had been spending too much on hiring.) He also said the restructuring process will be finished by early April.
Since then, the internet has been awash with rumors about when the cuts would happen — Valleywag, for example, said the layoffs are happening today, so that the layoff expenses just barely fall in the second quarter.
This news comes amid reports of continued flat growth of click-throughs on Google’s ads. There is some debate as to whether this is a good or bad sign for Google (our coverage).
We’ll update this article if we hear more.
