Microsoft has laid off about 1,000 employees across multiple divisions including the Xbox and the Edge teams, Axios reported citing an unidentified source. The layoffs affected less than 1 per cent of Microsoft’s last reported workforce of around 221,000. Earlier in July, the US tech giant had said that a small number of roles had been eliminated and that it would increase its employee count down the line. In a statement released by Microsoft said, “Today we had a small number of role eliminations. Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities regularly, and make structural adjustments accordingly.”
The Microsoft layoff makes it one more in a series of US technology companies cutting jobs or slowing hiring amid global economic slowdown. Several tech companies including Meta Platforms Inc, Twitter Inc and Snap Inc have cut jobs and stopped hiring in recent months due to global economic slowdown, rising inflation, etc. Meta recently laid off a group of 60 contractors who were reported to be selected at random by an algorithm. On August 31, 2022, Snap had announced its plan to reduce its headcount by approximately 20 per cent of its global full-time employees.
In India, the likes of Wipro and Infosys have also announced layoffs this year. Besides attrition, many companies like Apple, Oracle, Google and others have also announced a hiring freeze for the coming months. According to Crunchbase, more than 32,000 workers in the US tech sector have been laid off in mass job cuts, as of late July. “We’ve included both startups and publicly traded companies that are based in the US. We’ve also included companies based elsewhere that have a sizable team in the United States, such as Klarna,” the analysis said.
Microsoft, just a few days back, had launched its new Microsoft Surface lineup with Surface Laptop 5, Surface 9 Pro tablet, Studio 2+, and many more products.The company will announce its fiscal second quarter financial results on October 25.
