My answer to the question of Google being "evil" or not is that Google's motto was a promise that it wouldn't behave like a typical big company, and that as a public company it has obligations to shareholders that make the motto moot.

Here's some evidence for just-another-big-corporation theory (other reports dispute the size of Google's workforce reduction): "Google classifies 10,000 [...] employees as temporary operational expenses or 'workers'...The classification affords Google several advantages [including the hiring of] full time employees without full time benefits...By under-reporting actual employee headcount, Google looks good to Wall Street." 

Evil? Only by Google's definition of the word.

Comments

[Steve K.]

I think beyond just how Google appears to be treating its employees in this whole deal, the way they are exploiting loopholes in the system to "hide" these "temporary" workers is less than ethical. Again, is it "evil"? I think I tend to agree with you on this, Ed. And Google could do even worse in the future.

That's why I've started GoogleWatchers.org. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for how to spread the word and get more people involved in this grassroots Google-watching movement. Thanks!

[Ed Cone]

What they're doing is probably pretty typical of large software companies. Again, not "evil," except as defined by being different from other large software companies.

[newtgso]

Techies are big on work/life balance usually because their salaries allow them to be. I'm wondering how many of their staff are less than "full-time" by choice or on contract by choice. Since the only way we (meaning the standard set by the federal govt) have to measure full employment is the industrial era standard of 40 hours per week. Just a thought.

[newtgso]

I should add that it is a more common corporate tool than one might think to use temporary and contract workers in order to make the numbers look good. I worked for a company where one of its branches did just that...pissed off all of the other regions because the only way he hit his target was to use temp workers. And this company only had 500 full-time employees - not 30,000. FWIW.