Microsoft to cut “thousands” of engineering jobs, reports claim

Microsoft Corp. may develop into the most recent expertise big to announce a major variety of layoffs, based on a report from Bloomberg in the present day.

The report cites a “individual accustomed to the matter” as saying that the recent spherical of job cuts could be “considerably bigger” than earlier layoffs introduced by Microsoft during the last yr. If true, it will imply Microsoft joins the ranks of a rising variety of giant tech companies which can be chopping jobs forward of an anticipated international recession and lowered demand for his or her providers this yr.

Bloomberg’s supply, who requested to not be recognized, mentioned the variety of job cuts at Microsoft shouldn’t be clear, however would probably have an effect on individuals working in its engineering divisions.

Beforehand, Microsoft introduced a small number of job cuts in October and July that affected lower than 1% of its greater than 200,000 workers. The corporate has additionally notably paused hiring in lots of its enterprise models and has eradicated most of its job vacancies. That mentioned, whereas the likes of Amazon.com Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and Salesforce Inc. have all reacted to a slowing economic system by chopping enormous numbers of jobs, Microsoft has been extra cautious about scaling again its workforce.

The report from Bloomberg follows a declare by Sky News that Microsoft is planning to put off round 11,000 workers, which might quantity to roughly 5% of its workforce.

In current weeks, a rising variety of tech companies have wielded the ax, with Amazon slashing 18,000 jobs, or round 6% of its workforce, Salesforce cutting around 8,000 jobs and Meta, the father or mother firm of Fb, saying it will get rid of approximately 11,000 of its staff.

The business has been compelled to reply amid indicators of a slowing international economic system this yr, with many tech companies maybe feeling they’re now overstaffed following main hiring sprees throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

So far as Microsoft is anxious, analysts are at present forecasting it to put up a income achieve of about 2% in its fiscal third quarter outcomes, which will likely be introduced on Jan. 24. That may be Microsoft’s slowest gross sales progress since fiscal 2017. Ever since then, the corporate has loved sturdy progress due to rising demand for its Azure cloud computing providers. Nonetheless, even Azure’s progress has begun to stutter.

Quite a few huge tech companies proceed to chorus from chopping any vital numbers of jobs, notably Google LLC and Apple Inc.

Picture: Microsoft