Microsoft is Laying off 10,000 Employees

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.

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