Google gave its employees $1000 cash holiday bonuses and a minimum of 10% salary increase set to be implemented next year.

Business Insider reports that the 10% increase would take effect starting January 1, 2011 accross all Google offices. According to Henry Blodget of Business Insider, Google would also give its employee an additional raise equivalent to employee's target bonus for 2011, with Google paying for the taxes on the cash bonuses.

These so-called merit increases will be gauged on each employee's performance.

Google is one of the top employers in the world. It ranked fourth in Fortune's 200 Best Companies to Work For list, and is behind only of SAS on top spot, Edward Jones and Wegmans.

"Though a few perks have been cut in recent years, Google last year increased 401(k) matching and added a stock-option exchange program to help employees with underwater options. And engineers still get to devote 20% of their time to projects of their choosing," explained Fortune why it ranked Google as fourth in the list.

Google is also the top choice of students in the field of business and engineering. 130,000 students made Google their top choice as the most attractive employer, in a survey released last September by Universum.