Microsoft is Laying off 10,000 Employees

Patrick Devaney
Jan 19, 2023
Updated • Jan 19, 2023
Microsoft
|
12

It is never good news to report on people losing their jobs but unfortunately, it is something we have to do again today with Microsoft announcing that it is cutting 10,000 jobs from its workforce. In total, the layoffs work out at approximately 5% of the company's workforce.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced in an email to employees reported in Time that the layoffs mark “less than 5 percent of our total employee base, with some notifications happening today” adding “while we are eliminating roles in some areas, we will continue to hire in key strategic areas [such as] new computer platform [using advances in artificial intelligence]”. In other moves related to this belt-tightening strategy, the company will also be making changes to its hardware portfolio and consolidating its leased office locations.

In a regulatory filing processed on Wednesday. The company said the layoffs were a response to “macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities.” This certainly ties in with the wider woes that have been affecting tech’s biggest players with the likes of Amazon, Meta, and Twitter, among others cutting significant chunks out of their workforces over recent months too. Microsoft was keen to point out, however, that it wasn’t cutting as many workers as it had taken on during the COVID-19 pandemic with a global rush from users toward working online.

It is likely, however, that over-enthusiastic hiring practices and growth projections have contributed to this round of layoffs. With the tech sector in general still growing and hiring more workers than ever before, it is clear that the problem is more related to the underlying aspects of the system that these massive tech companies thrive in rather than an aversion to tech in general. Things have slowed down a little globally and when you are chasing perpetual growth, people lose jobs when things slow down.

The fact that the tech sector is still growing is the only silver lining in this story for the workers who are losing their jobs. It is highly likely that their skills will be valued somewhere else and with more and more jobs becoming available that offer telework opportunities, the search for new work is no longer confined to geographic localities.

Summary
Article Name
Microsoft is laying off 10,000 employees
Description
Microsoft is following in the footsteps of other big tech companies as it lays off 10,000 worker, which is roughly 5% of its entire workforce.
Author
Publisher
Ghacks Technology News
Logo
Advertisement

Tutorials & Tips


Previous Post: «
Next Post: «

Comments

  1. Tom Hawack said on January 20, 2023 at 6:20 pm
    Reply

    Undoubtedly companies who don’t have to deal with unions except maybe if I remember correctly for the minimum wages (if you’re a member) have this facility to hire and fire as they will and undoubtedly as well this free-firing in a free-market in a free world participates to a country’s prosperity, at least to companies under such jurisdictions.

    If you intend to open a company, to have it managed free of obligations other than those pertinent to shareholders, if you consider that business ir amoral and therefor entitles you to be immoral, then open your business in a country ready to suit your aspirations. U.S.A. why not?

    I say this free of demagogy, never have been and never will be a leftist, neither am I a union unconditional lover, nevertheless do I appreciate firewalls, as indispensable as freedom. Interventionism is like wine : good when moderately used. Perhaps excessively in some countries, perhaps insufficiently in others. I seldom evoke politics, and even less on a technological blog, but given the circumstances reported by the article, I make an exception.

  2. Someone said on January 20, 2023 at 2:03 pm
    Reply

    Ten thousad fists, ahead
    Band Disturbed, from 2005..

  3. Jek Porkins said on January 20, 2023 at 7:14 am
    Reply

    Maybe they finally realized they can just ship broken beta versions of Windows as official final builds and just leave it at that and people will still use it, because Microsoft made them their bitches long ago. That’s why they don’t need staff. Especially not for QA or bug reporting.

  4. 11r20 said on January 19, 2023 at 6:05 pm
    Reply

    By design, today’s M$ operating systems have a lot of back doors.

    I ran ‘Blackbird’ on one of the updated office machines at work (windows-11) and it showed over 1200 nefarious IP’s, of which about 700 were Micro$hyyt IP’s, the rest were, AWS, Fakebook, Google Analytics etc.

    I didn’t hit the restart button or block all them nefarious IP’s for fear of crashin the
    system ((laughin))…My office staff uses those new Micro$hyyt systems cuz, well, that’s how millennial’s in the matrix work.

    On the other hand, I use a nice ol’ simple, quiet, secured, hardened Win-7 with a nice L-ong Firewall-List of Bad-IP-Ranges/ASN’s I’ve captured over the years = No Back Doors

    Thanks fer Readin > 11r20 from TX

  5. Peterc said on January 19, 2023 at 5:37 pm
    Reply

    Ten thousand down, a hundred ninety thousand to go!

  6. hoho said on January 19, 2023 at 5:05 pm
    Reply

    Fire the CEO first.

  7. Doomsday Ahead said on January 19, 2023 at 4:14 pm
    Reply

    Probably the last few who actually know how to code get sacked… You know what this means? It means MORE ADS, MORE PRIVACY VIOLATIONS in Windows. Zorin OS 17, please come soon… We need a way out of this madness.

  8. John G. said on January 19, 2023 at 3:16 pm
    Reply

    Not enough people fired at Minionsoft in my opinion. After W11 all of them should be fired directly with no mercy.

  9. pHROZEN gHOST said on January 19, 2023 at 3:12 pm
    Reply

    Key phrase … “[using advances in artificial intelligence]”.

    You have been replaced by AI.

  10. WilliamGates said on January 19, 2023 at 2:29 pm
    Reply

    Hopefully the entire Windows 11 team, the insider team, Panos Panay, and every single person in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbsUdFuWKuU are fired in this round. Someone needs to take responsibility for the poor unfinished product that was released to the public, complete with a useless taskbar, start menu, and right-click menu, and for waiting almost two years to restore certain essential features.

    Microsoft needs to recruit brilliant individuals who won’t want to turn Windows into a terrible cloud dependent operating system that’s overrun with MSN/Bing ads, and crummy online services. Also, instead of utilizing bloated web technologies, they should return to using native frameworks.

    1. Matt Parker said on January 19, 2023 at 7:51 pm
      Reply

      I always hate to hear IT folks getting fired as I hope that doesn’t happen to me. With that said, you are so right about the abomination that is Windows 11’s start menu/taskbar.

  11. El Duderino said on January 19, 2023 at 1:17 pm
    Reply

    Let’s hope shills are not included in those.

Leave a Reply

Check the box to consent to your data being stored in line with the guidelines set out in our privacy policy

We love comments and welcome thoughtful and civilized discussion. Rudeness and personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please stay on-topic.
Please note that your comment may not appear immediately after you post it.