10,000 contract employees could be at risk at Google. The company does not plan to lay off its permanent positions but its temp/contract jobs could soon be all gone.

Google has done a good job of ignoring financial markets in the past and generally does what it thinks make the most sense for the long term. The problem the company faces today however is that many of its employees have stock options which are worthless and as a result the company may be feeling pressure to do something to convince Wall Street they are on the right track.

Then again, it could be the company sees a dramatic slowdown in revenue coming.

It is unclear which is the reason for the job cuts but it is becoming apparent to all companies that downsizing is something that needs to be done to prepare for a potentially lean 2009.