Agreed. I think it is highly unlikely that PIP is being used on a large scale as a real cost-cutting measure. PIP takes months. More likely, they simply are realizing that they have some duds on staff. They've grown tremendously in the past four years, and not all those hires were gems.

I have even heard that there are new hiring rules, that engineers now have to have X years of experience doing Y before they can be hired. Which is totally anti-old-school-Google; they would hire the greenest college kid if s/he seemed brilliant and industrious. This suggests that they now believe they have a systemic hiring problem. Or, that brilliance is now not as important as experience. Either way, it suggests that Google is changing.

removed.

Your comment now doesn't make sense because I edited out that bit.

I couldn't care less about identifying him though... he's not a friend, he's more like a former enemy-co-worker. ;) We struggled to fire him for months and then when we heard he got hired at Google you could have knocked us over with a feather.

This also has the advantage of not being as damaging or negative to the employees being let go as well (no stigma of being fired).

After reading this, I think this comment was in poor thinking: the PIP would carry a stigma -- usually companies let of under performers as a part of a bigger lay off (no stigma attached, as positions have been eliminated -- not the individuals); here it seems to be they're doing the opposite (they're firing people as to avoid publicizing a general lay off). Of course I don't know the true situation, so this is mere speculation.

That's meaningless in the context of the problem of trying to get a job in a recession.

I've switched jobs (voluntarily) when the recession just hit (September '08). I still get requests from headhunters, without looking. Part of it has to do with having Yahoo! on my resume -- and I'd imagine having Google would somewhat more impressive.

It's just a job someone will find now may not be a job on their terms.