Microsoft Confirms Second Round Of Job Cuts

Microsoft has continued to cut expenses, after a second round of job cuts at the software giant was confirmed by a company spokesperson.

On Monday Axios reported that Microsoft internally announced layoffs across multiple divisions. There was no official confirmation of the number of staff handed their P45s, but Axios (citing an unnamed source) reported that the layoffs numbered under 1,000 people.

It seems that the redundancies have occurred across a variety of levels, teams and parts of the world at the tech giant.

Second tranche

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the company had let go of additional workers as the software maker’s revenue is expected to slow, thanks to weaker sales of Windows licenses for PCs, CNBC reported.

“Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC. “We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead.”

It should be noted that these latest job cuts comes three months after Redmond had announced a round of layoffs affecting less than 1 percent of employees in early July.

Those early July job losses were described as part of an annual structural adjustment, which Microsoft said was routinely carried out every summer.

Then later in July it was reported that Microsoft had eliminated many open jobs, including in its Azure cloud business and its security software unit, as the economy continued to weaken.

Microsoft withdrew job listings for its cloud and security divisions – both of which have performed well, financially speaking.

However Microsoft confirmed it would honour job offers that had already been made and would make some exceptions for critical roles.

It came after a senior Microsoft executive in May this year had warned the management of the Windows and Office divisions to adopt a more conservative approach to hiring new people.

Microsoft is expected to announce its quarterly results on 25 October, during which the true number of job losses at Microsoft could be revealed.

Other tech players

Microsoft is not alone in reducing headcount however, or implementing hiring freezes.

Tesla has already restructuring its operations and has been axing 10,000 jobs, after Elon Musk announced he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy and planned to cut headcount by 10 percent and “pause all hiring worldwide.”

Apple in August laid off a tranche of people (mostly tech recruiters), in an apparent effort to slowdown hiring and clamp down on spending.

In July Mark Gurman had reported that Apple would not backfill roles or add new staff in certain cases, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai in July warned that Alphabet planned to slow down hiring and consolidate investments through 2023

Facebook parent Meta Platforms in July scaled back its target for adding software engineers this year from 10,000 to around 6,000 to 7,000.

Last month Zuckerberg told Meta staff that the firm would freeze hiring and “further restructure” amid an uncertain macroeconomic situation.