Looking for a new job in tech? Google announced Tuesday that 2011 will be its biggest hiring year to date.
The news came the same day that Yahoo announced it would cut 1 percent of its workforce.
"I am excited about 2011—because it will be our biggest hiring year in company history," Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research at Google, said in a blog post. "We're looking for top talent—across the board and around the globe—and we'll hire as many smart, creative people as we can to tackle some of the toughest challenges in computer science."
Google added more than 4,500 jobs in 2010, primarily in engineering and sales. Last year was the second biggest year for new hires behind 2007, when the company added 6,000 jobs, Eustace wrote.
What type of things will new Google employees be tackling? Eustace said there will be "something at Google for everyone—from geo, to enterprise, to video—with most of the work done in small teams, effectively working as start-ups."
The average number of software engineers on a project at Google is 3.5, he said.
Though Google now has 24,400 employees, Eustace insisted that it is "still the same entrepreneurial company it was when I started, encouraging Googlers to take on big ideas and high-risk, high-reward opportunities."
According to chief executive officer Eric Schmidt, about 1,000 of those new jobs will be in Europe.
"Our businesses are doing very well around the globe, and as a result I'm happy to announce we'll be adding 1,000 new employees in Europe and make some significant investments," Schmidt said in his keynote at the DLD Conference in Germany. "Hundreds of these people will be located right here in our technology center in Munich."
Yahoo, meanwhile, will cut 1 percent of its workforce. "The personnel changes we are making are part of our ongoing strategy to best position Yahoo for revenue growth and margin expansion and to support our strategy to deliver differentiated products and experiences to the marketplace," a Yahoo spokeswoman told the Los Angeles Times.
The news comes about a month after Yahoo cut about 600 additional jobs. On Tuesday, Yahoo reported fourth quarter revenue of $1.525 billion, a 12 percent decrease from the year before. Earnings, however, jumped from $153 million to $312 million.