EON

As another sign of the tough economic times this country faces in the coming year, even some of the top companies are being forced to make cutbacks.

This time the bad news comes from Google, the internet giant based out of California. Despite recent growth from the company, the decision came from corporate headquarters to lay off 70 workers company wide by closing three offices.

Two of the offices are located overseas in Lulea, Sweden and Trondheim, Norway, while domestically Google shut down its office in Austin. Most of the affected employees were engineers, and though the employees were offered jobs at other Google offices, Google does not have any other engineering plants in the Austin area, which would mean to accept any new position, employees would have to relocate.

The lay offs in Austin came as a bit of a surprise. Google had only opened the office there in October, and the city was proud to be home to a branch of the internet company. Fortunately though the lay offs sting, the overall local economy in Austin should not be too greatly impacted.

Google released a statement concerning the lay offs and explained that the company was still doing well, and that these cost cutting measures only came at engineering plants that were failing to support themselves in the tightened economy. Despite that, Google expressed no intention of reopening the plants when the recession passes.