This represents 5% of the workforce of the IT company, which has some 220,000 employees. The announcement could come as early as Wednesday.
Microsoft will begin a new wave of job cuts on a larger scale than those decided in recent months, within its engineering teams, the Bloomberg agency reported on Tuesday, January 17. According to SkyNews, the company is preparing to cut up to 5% of its workforce, or just over 10,000 employees out of some 220,000. According to the specialized site The Vergethis announcement could come as early as Wednesday. “We do not comment on rumours”Microsoft responded to a request from AFP.
The Redwood (Washington State) firm had already carried out two rounds of layoffs, one in July, which it said concerned less than 1% of the workforce. The second took place in October and targeted less than 1,000 people, according to the Axios news site. Microsoft currently has 221,000 employees, including 122,000 in the United States, according to the company’s website.
During an interview with CNBC in November, CEO Satya Nadella explained that no company was immune to macroeconomic trends, which are currently showing a slowdown in activity. “So everyone has to control their costs and demand adequately”he said.
Deterioration of the economic situation
Microsoft is due to release its quarterly results on January 24. Its turnover is expected to increase by only 2.7% over one year, a very slow pace for the IT giant accustomed to double-digit growth. After surging at the start of the pandemic, demand for IT products has normalized, a movement accentuated in recent months by the hike in rates by the American central bank (Fed).
Microsoft had initially resisted thanks to the dynamism of remote computing (cloud), but companies have tended to limit their investments for several months for fear of a deterioration in the economy. Several large groups in the technology sector have already made major layoffs, including Amazon, which announced in early January the loss of just over 18,000 jobs.