Microsoft set to layoff 10,000 employees starting today

Microsoft has announced massive layoffs that will begin today, January 18, affecting thousands of employees. The tech giant's CEO, Satya Nadella, stated in an official blog post that the company would be:

"...making changes that will result in the reduction of our overall workforce by 10,000 jobs through the end of Fiscal Year 2023 Quarter 3."

According to the blog post, the changes are the result of cost restructuring for FY 23. The layoffs are reported to be announced in the tech giant's engineering division (including a few positions in Xbox) as early as Wednesday.

Microsoft currently has over 220,000 employees across several different divisions worldwide, and the latest layoffs would slash almost 4.5-5% of its current workforce. This is reportedly higher than last year's, which saw the Washington-based company slash one percent of its workforce.

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Microsoft to lay off 10,000 employees worldwide as part of cost restructuring in the company

According to the official blog post by CEO Satya Nadella, the latest round of layoffs will affect less than five percent of the company's total workforce. However, this is still a huge number of people that will lose their jobs as a result of internal restructuring for the upcoming fiscal year.

In the blog post, Nadella hinted that the software development giant, alongside other leading tech companies, is set to face a challenging time ahead as "we're living through times of significant change." The company intends to make cautionary changes for this upcoming fiscal year, focusing on its long-term goals.

The latest round of job cuts will be one of Microsoft's largest ever. The company had earlier fired 5,800 people in 2009 and 18,000 in 2014 (including approximately 12,500 former Nokia employees).

The recent layoffs come just days after the company implemented a new "unlimited time off policy” from January 16. Managers can approve "unlimited discretionary time-off” for employees hereon. Those with unused vacation balance will get a one-time payout at the end of this fiscal year.

While the policy was received positively by most employees internally, the lack of guaranteed days off and benefits did garner a fair bit of criticism.

Microsoft is the latest in a series of big tech companies that have announced massive layoffs, citing structural and financial changes. Meta was in the spotlight recently for its layoff announcement that affected more than 11,000 employees in several different divisions worldwide.

Another recent tech establishment that has conducted massive internal layoffs is Amazon, axing more than 18,000 employees.