Google chief Eric Schmidt confirms war for talent

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has confirmed the company is in a war for talent, and is hiring hundreds of new employees every week.

The comment comes after the company reportedly gave all of its employees a 10% pay rise last week, with some commentators reporting the internet giant is hoping to stop the flow of talent to Facebook.

Speaking at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, Schmidt said the decision to give a pay rise was made earlier this year.

“We wanted to share our success and knew even upper-level workers are struggling with real estate costs,” he said.

Schmidt also attacked media reports suggesting the company was leaking talent, saying that “any company of scale is subject to the following narrative, ‘Big, fat, dumb and happy'” and added this was not the case.