In a recent turn of events, tech giant Microsoft has joined the string of companies pursuing elimination of workforce to cope up with economic uncertainty. Recent reports have suggested that Microsoft Layoffs 2023 are on their way and may start sooner than we think. The company is likely to cut around 11,000 jobs, which equals to around 5 percent of the workforce being eliminated.
A report by Bloomberg and Reuters suggested that the engineering department and human resources department are expected to be majorly affected by the layoffs. An official figure for the number of job cuts has not yet been provided by the company.
Previously in October 2022, Microsoft allegedly laid off approximately 1,000 employees in several divisions of the company. These layoffs affected around 1 percent of the 2 lakh employees at Microsoft.
Although, according to a report by the UK based SKY news, almost 5 per cent of the workforce is likely to be slacked, which equals to around 11,000 employees being laid off from their jobs. Microsoft is yet to comment anything on the matter.
The layoffs at Microsoft come in the headlines days after Amazon began its layoffs. Recently, Amazon said it would be firing slightly over 18,000 employees. The announcement came from CEO Andy Jassy after information regarding the layoffs was leaked.
According to its filings, until June 30, 2022, Microsoft had a workforce comprising 2,21,000 full time employees. Out of these, 1,22,000 are in the United States while 99,000 are employed in the other parts of the world.
What does Microsoft’s move signify?
Microsoft’s move could imply that the tech sector may continue to cut off jobs amid the global economic recession and uncertainty.
It should be noted here that Microsoft is the latest big tech company to face a challenging economy, and the job cuts will come within days after the firm implemented a new unlimited vacation policy.
As per the reports, Microsoft employees that have an unused vacation balance will get a one-time payout in April, and managers will be in charge to approve unlimited “Discretionary Time Off.”
Source: Yahoo News Singapore
Unlike several other major tech companies, Microsoft, until now, has resisted large-scale layoffs. Earlier this month, though, CEO Satya Nadella warned of sustained turbulence in the tech sector, and said, “The next two years are probably going to be the most challenging. 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 large parts of the world. . . . We will have to adjust.”
Microsoft is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on January 24 and has been under pressure from investors to show growth in its Azure cloud computing unit, as personal computer sales have slowed considerably in the past year.
