Google Cutting 300 Jobs at DoubleClick - New York Times

That's ~25% of the jobs at DoubleClick

“It is clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing business,” Tom Phillips, director of DoubleClick integration at Google, wrote on the company’s official blog. “At Google, maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to our mission and core to the trust we ask from our users.”

The decision to sell Performics Search Marketing is not surprising, said Ellen Siminoff, chairman of search marketing company Efficient Frontier. Google’s job is to get paid as much as possible for the ads that appear on its pages.

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Google added more than 6,100 workers in 2007 and ended the year with 16,805 employees worldwide. Amid shareholder concerns about its fast-rising expenses, Mr. Schmidt promised investors last year that Google would slow its rate of hiring.

Google Cutting 300 Jobs at DoubleClick - New York Times