San Francisco - Internet giant Google said Thursday that it planned to cut 200 jobs in sales and marketing to trim costs as revenue growth slows amid the current global recession and sharp US economic downturn.

The Silicon Valley company said the cuts would take place in the United States and around the world, affecting about 1 per cent of the company's 20,000 employees worldwide.

The announcement came just two months after Google implemented its first-ever job cuts when it eliminated 200 recruiting positions. In February it closed its radio programming business, with the loss of 40 jobs.

"Google has grown very quickly in a very short period of time," Omid Kordestani, senior vice president of global sales and business development, said in a blog posting announcing the job cuts.

"When companies grow that quickly, it's almost impossible to get everything right - and we certainly didn't. In addition, we overinvested in some areas in preparation for the growth trends we were experiencing at the time."

Google saw its fourth-quarter revenue grow by 18 per cent in 2008, compared to a 51-per-cent rise in 2007. The company commands more than 60 per cent of the search-engine market in the US, with revenue of almost 22 billion dollars last year, 97 per cent from advertising.