Google Declares Recession Over, Will Resume Hiring
Company executives indicated that the company would resume hiring and continue making acquisitions.
For the third quarter ended Sept. 30, Google reported sales of $5.94 billion, up 7 percent from $5.54 billion one year ago. Earnings increased more than 27 percent to $1.64 billion from $1.29 billion one year earlier.
"While there is a lot of uncertainty about the pace of economic recovery, we believe the worst of the recession is behind us and now feel confident about investing heavily in our future," Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a statement.
Chief financial officer Patrick Pichette, in an earnings call with financial analysts, said Google would resume hiring staff for its engineering, sales and support operations, according to a call transcript. On the engineering side, the company will be hiring staff with expertise in mobile, video and search technologies.
"We think that in this kind of economic environment there is a great opportunity to actually get great talent so we should capitalize on that as much as possible," he said. As of Sept. 30, Google had 19,665 employees, down from 19,786 as of June 30.
Google executives said they would continue to acquire companies with businesses and technology that complement Google's existing businesses.