Google has announced that it will axe 100 jobs from the company, mainly from its recruitment staff; and will also shut down three engineering offices and close several projects as the recession that plagues the world is taking its toll on the internet search engine giant.

Offices in Norway, Sweden and in Texas, USA will be shut down; as the company looks to store up cash so it can continue during the recession.

Also shutting down will be web bookmarking service Notebook, social network Dodgeball and Scandinavia-based microblogging site Jaiku. However, Jaiku may still live on from a “volunteer team” of Google employees; but the main code is in the process to be open source via the Google App Engine, and after that, it will no longer be developed by Google.

Also in termination bin will be the Mashup Editor, which was still in private beta, and will be replaced by the Google App Engine; and Google Catalog Search, which was a demonstration of new technology that allowed you to search catalogs.

Google Video also announced that uploading video to the site has been removed, in favour of YouTube, which it acquired in 2006.

Speculation also turns to which project will be on the chopping block, with TechCrunch and CenterNetworks saying that GrandCentral and Knol, its Wikipedia clone, will be the next to go. CNET’s Rafe Needleman is also saying that Google may axe Google Base, a Craigslist-like site.