Microsoft is about to put off 1000’s of workers throughout all of its divisions, a brand new report launched right now claims.
In line with CNBC (which cites a press release given to it instantly by Microsoft), 3% of all workers shall be laid off “throughout all ranges, groups, and geographies”. That is CNBC’s wording.
As CNBC factors out, Microsoft counted 228,000 workers on its books as of June final yr. That might imply that roughly 6,800 workers shall be shedding their jobs within the largest spherical of firm cuts since January 2023, when round 10,000 employees members had been laid off.
In a press release as loaded with corpo-speak as you’d anticipate, a spokesperson instructed CNBC that the layoffs are a part of “organizational adjustments essential to finest place the corporate for achievement in a dynamic market”.
These cuts aren’t associated to efficiency, in keeping with Microsoft; as an alternative, they’re about lowering “layers of administration”, as CNBC places it.
Regardless of Microsoft eager to “finest place” itself for “success”, it appears the corporate is already attaining that success. Again in April, the corporate celebrated a buoyant third quarter for the 2024-25 fiscal yr, with income up 13% year-on-year and working revenue up 16%.
Xbox’s “content material and providers income” was up 8% in that very same interval, so no matter Microsoft’s motivation is for shedding 1000’s of its workers, it could’t be to show round struggling fortunes.
These layoffs come simply a few weeks after EA introduced sweeping cuts to its personal workforce, with Titanfall and Apex Legends developer Respawn among the many EA subsidiaries most affected by the layoffs. Different studios hit by cuts in latest months embrace BioWare and, er, Microsoft once more.
After all, the staggering variety of workers the tech big has laid off in latest instances did not cease CEO Satya Nadella scoring himself an eye-wateringly excessive payrise in 2024. Twas ever thus, eh?
In gaming phrases, Microsoft’s Xbox division is gearing up (no pun meant) to launch Gears of Warfare: Reloaded later this yr, and upcoming main titles embrace Gears of Warfare: E-Day and Fable, though neither has a launch date as of but.