Google has cut 100 full-time staff after closing engineering offices worldwide and discontinuing less popular services in a bid to reduce costs.

The cull, reported by gossip website Valleywag, follows Google's decision to terminate nearly every contract with internal and external contractors.

"Given the state of the economy, we recognised that we needed fewer people focused on hiring," Google's vice president of people operations, Laszlo Bock, wrote in a post on the company's official blog.

"After much consideration, we have with great regret decided that we need to go further."

This is the first major redundancy exercise carried out by Google since the $3.1bn (£2.12bn) takeover of advertising business DoubleClick in 2007, when 300 employees were shown the door.

Google's restructuring also includes the closure of engineering offices in Austin, Texas; Trondheim, Norway; and Lulea, Sweden, as well as the withdrawal of Jaiku and Dodgeball, two Twitter-like services, but less popular thant the micro-blogging service.