In a post on the official Google blog, Laszlo Bock, Google's vice president of people operations, said the Mountain View, California-based company now needs fewer people focused on hiring.

Bock said Google had started by terminating contracts with external recruiters, but the worsening economy had necessitated the laying off of full-time workers.

The 100 positions represent less than one-quarter of Google's total in-house recruiters, spokesman Matthew Furman said.

The job cuts come after a series of other cost-cutting moves by Google.

Known for its extravagant holiday parties, Google decided to scale back on end-2008 celebrations, a source said earlier.

It had earlier cut a number of contract worker jobs, and pulled back some benefits for employees in its New York office cafeteria, in moves designed to save money.

In a separate blog post, Google's senior vice president of engineering and research Alan Eustace said the company was also shutting offices in Austin, Texas; Trondheim, Norway; and Lulea, Sweden, and asking about 70 engineers employed at these sites to move to other offices or leave.

Google shut its Phoenix, Arizona office in September and relocated most of its engineers to other offices, Eustace said.