Published , by Morgan Shaver
Published , by Morgan Shaver
According to reports from outlets like Sky News, Microsoft (MSFT) is planning mass layoffs that’ll affect thousands of employees, with estimates currently suggesting that around 5 percent of its workforce may be cut. As noted by The Verge, Microsoft currently employs more than 220,000 people which means upwards of 10,000 employees could be laid off.
The upcoming layoffs at Microsoft are rumored to be significantly larger than ones seen in the past, such as those that took place back in October where Microsoft cut over 1,000 jobs across various departments including its Xbox and Edge teams. An exact date for these imminent layoffs has yet to be shared, but The Verge claims that Microsoft told it that it plans to announce the layoffs this coming Wednesday ahead of the release of its quarterly earnings report.
It's unclear exactly who will be affected by these new layoffs, however, they're said to be targeting employees in Microsoft’s various engineering divisions. In regards to why Microsoft is cutting so many people, hints can be found in recent interviews including one with CNBC in which Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella cautions about imminent challenges facing the tech industry, noting that Microsoft hasn’t been “immune to the global changes” that’ve been taking place and expects the next two years to be the most challenging.
“The next two years are probably going to be the most challenging,” Nadella told CNBC. “We did have a lot of acceleration during the pandemic, and there’s some amount of normalization of that demand. And on top of it, there is a real recession in some parts of the world.”
We’ll be sure to update you on the impact of Microsoft’s latest layoffs as additional information rolls out. Until then, be sure to catch up with some of our other recent Microsoft-related coverage including how Microsoft may invest $10 billion in ChatGPT creator OpenAI, and how Google and Nvidia have expressed concerns to the FTC over Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.