Google is taking the axe to its contractor workforce and might be giving more than 10,000 their marching orders. The plan to cut back on contractors has been on the drawing board for about six months now.

Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, admitted that 10,000 was a bit steep and plans to significantly reduce that number through vendor management, converting some contractors to regular employees, and other approaches.

Google has been slowing hiring and reportedly had 20,123 of its own employees at the end of September.  However, it wants to increase revenue from YouTube and other properties, and has shut down projects such as the Lively virtual world and SearchMash experimental search sites.