‘Significantly Larger’ Layoff: Microsoft To Sack Thousands Of Employees Today

In a ‘significantly larger’ job cut, Microsoft is likely to begin laying off its employees from today.

Microsoft Layoff, latest update: Layoff woes only continue to grow as more and more firms sack employees almost everyday. In what is being termed another major blow to the employees, one of the biggest tech firms, Microsoft, is set to fire 5 per cent of its workforce, reported Reuters citing Sky News. It means, the tech firm will layoff thousands of employees across divisions. According to the report, the layoffs might take place today and thousands of job cuts are expected in human resources and engineering divisions.

In another report by The Verge, the job cuts are said to be “significantly larger” than the 1 per cent cut to Microsoft’s workforce last year. The previous job cuts affected positions in consulting and customer and partner solutions. Last year in October, the firm had laid off around 1000 employees.

Microsoft is under pressure to maintain growth rate at its cloud unit Azure, after several quarters of the downturn in the personal computer market hurt Windows and devices sales, reported Reuters.

This move comes days after Microsoft had implemented a new unlimited time off policy. Microsoft employees that have an unused vacation balance will get a one-time payout in April, and managers will be able to approve unlimited “Discretionary Time Off.”

In an interview with CNBC, CEO Satya Nadella admitted Microsoft wasn’t “immune to the global changes” and spoke of the need for tech companies to be efficient. “The next two years are probably going to be the most challenging,” said Nadella. “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.”

The layoffs would be the latest in the US technology sector, where companies including Amazon.com Inc and Meta Platforms Inc have announced retrenchment exercises in response to slowing demand and a worsening global economic outlook.