Microsoft Announces Largest Layoffs Since 2023, Cutting 6,000 Jobs
WASHINGTON — Microsoft has started laying off approximately 3% of its workforce, marking its largest mass layoff in over two years. The tech giant is cutting about 6,000 jobs, including 1,985 positions in its home state of Washington. This move affects all levels and geographies within the company, with a particular focus on reducing the number of managers.
The layoffs come just weeks after Microsoft reported strong sales and profits that exceeded Wall Street expectations for the January-March quarter. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been focusing on “building high-performing teams and increasing our agility by reducing layers with fewer managers.” The company employed 228,000 full-time workers as of last June, with about 55% of those employees based in the U.S.
This recent round of layoffs follows a smaller performance-based cut in January. The 3% reduction is Microsoft’s biggest since early 2023, when the company cut 10,000 workers, nearly 5% of its workforce. The latest cuts are part of “organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” according to Microsoft.
The layoffs will impact various sectors of Microsoft’s business, including the career networking site LinkedIn and the video game platform Xbox. Microsoft has been investing $80 billion in the fiscal year ending in June to build data centers and infrastructure for its artificial intelligence technology. Microsoft’s CFO, Amy Hood, mentioned that the headcount in March was 2% higher than the previous year but slightly lower than at the end of the previous year.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently discussed the role of AI in coding, stating that “maybe 20, 30% of the code” for some projects “are probably all written by software.” This indicates the growing integration of AI tools in Microsoft’s operations, which are being marketed as revolutionary for workplace productivity.
