Tech

Microsoft Reportedly Laying Off Over 10,000 People

Rachel Goh

2023-01-18 , 6:02 pm

If you have dreams of working at Microsoft, think again.

The tech giant is reportedly laying off over 10,000 people.

Furthermore, it is not the first tech company to do so.

Who is Affected?

According to Sky News, Microsoft plans to cut around 5% of its workforce.

5% only? A lot meh?

Considering that there are more than 220,000 employees at Microsoft, over 10,000 people will be laid off.

Bloomberg reported that the job cuts are significantly larger than the 1% that the company laid off last year.

Apparently, the layoffs will occur in some engineering divisions.

While the date for the layoffs is unconfirmed, a source familiar with the situation told The Verge that Microsoft would likely be announcing layoffs on Wednesday.

The news comes after Microsoft implemented a new Discretionary Time Off policy for US employees a week ago.

Not the First Round of Layoffs

In August 2022, Microsoft laid off approximately 1% of its employees.

Specifically, it laid off the team focused on winning back consumers under Modern Life Experiences.

About 200 employees were affected.

This round of job cuts came shortly after layoffs in consulting, customer and partner solutions just a few weeks before.

Microsoft has also been cutting open job roles.

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Layoffs Trending in the Tech Industry

In an interview with CNBC a few weeks ago, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warned that the tech industry would face challenges in the next two years.

She commented, “We did have a lot of acceleration during the pandemic, and there’s some amount of normalisation of that demand. And on top of it, there is a real recession in some parts of the world.”

In recent months, many other tech giants have seen massive layoffs.

A few weeks ago, Amazon reportedly laid off over 17,000 employees, which was significantly larger than previously estimated.

Meta, the owner of Facebook, reduced its workforce by 11,000.

Twitter and cloud software provider Salesforce has also seen thousands of employee layoffs.

This trend is mainly a result of these tech giants recruiting thousands of additional employees during the pandemic.

However, these companies have been forced to lay people off due to an upcoming global recession.

This new wave of layoffs at Microsoft reflects an ongoing trend in the tech industry that shows no sign of improvement.

Morningstar analyst Dan Romanoff said, “From a big picture perspective, another pending round of layoffs at Microsoft suggests the environment is not improving, and likely continues to worsen.”

Here’s a quick explanation of this phenomenon:

Microsoft’s Current Focus

The company has seen success with its Microsoft 365 subscriptions for consumers.

Microsoft has also been trying to acquire popular communities over the past few years.