Despite its renowned resilience, Google Inc has suffered blows from the ongoing economic crisis –according to its latest announcement, the company plans to cut the jobs of 100 full-time recruiters and close three engineering offices. Of late, the company has also terminated a considerable number of external contractors in the areas of engineering and public.

In October, Google had said that it was still hiring, though a bit cautiously. As such, the job-cuts announced Wednesday becomes one of the unusual steps taken by the company.

Google’s vice president of people operations, Laszlo Bock, said that the laying off of full-time workers has been imperative in the face of the declining economy. Bock added that company now needs fewer people focused on hiring, because of the “reduced hiring rate.”

Sandeep Aggrawal, a Collins Stewart analyst, said that though the number of cuts announced by Google is fairly small, what is disturbing is the fact that “this is the first example of laying off full-time employees in Google’s history.”

Aggrawal expects the growth rate of the Internet giant to come down to 20% this year, in comparison to the 2007 figures of 60%.

Meanwhile, the closing of Google’s three engineering offices - in Texas, Norway and Sweden – is aimed at better coordination of its efforts across different geographic areas, rather than being a cost cutting measure. Alan Eustace, the company’s senior vice president for engineering and research, said the 70 employees affected by the changes will be offered some other jobs.