NEW YORK (AP) — Google Inc. is closing three engineering offices and cutting 100 recruiters from its work force as the recession dampens hiring at the Internet search company.

"Given the state of the economy, we recognised that we needed fewer people focused on hiring," Laszlo Bock, a Google vice president, wrote in a blog posting late on Wednesday announcing the lay-offs.

In a separate post, Google said it would close its engineering offices in Austin, Texas; Trondheim, Norway and Lulea, Sweden, a step the company said would affect 70 workers.

"Our strong desire is to keep as many of these 70 engineering employees at Google as possible," wrote Google's vice-president for engineering and research, Alan Eustace.

"Our long-term goal is not to trim the number of people we have working on engineering projects or reduce our global presence, but create a smaller number of more effective engineering sites," he added.

The cuts follow news last week of a government filing from Google showing a significant cutback in temporary employees aimed at trimming costs. The company acknowledged in November that it would be looking to reduce contract workers while retaining full-time staff. Google hasn't said how many positions it plans to eliminate.