Microsoft has announced plans to lay off thousands of employees across the company.
The 3% workforce reduction was confirmed by a Microsoft spokesperson in a Tuesday email to The Center Square.
“We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” the spokesperson said.
The email also stated: “Even in the best of times, we have regularly adjusted our workforce to meet the strategic demands of the business. We are increasing our agility by reducing layers with fewer managers. We will empower employees to spend more time focusing on meaningful work by leveraging new technologies and capabilities.
“To enhance our efficiency, we will minimize redundancy by streamlining our processes, procedures, and roles,” read the statement.
The Redmond, Washington-based tech giant did not give a specific number of employees who will be cut, but as of March 31, the company reported having 126,000 workers in the United States and 102,000 International employees, for a total of 228,000 worldwide. That would mean about 6,800 Microsoft employees could be losing their jobs in the newly announced cuts.
“We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
The reduction in force is the largest since January 2023 when Microsoft announced plans to cut about 5% of its workforce, which amounted to roughly 10,000 workers.
As then reported by The Center Square, the 2023 layoffs came at the same time Amazon reduced its workforce by over 18,000 positions.
Tuesday’s layoffs were reportedly not performance-based, the spokesperson said, but rather out of “a desire to flatten management.”
The cuts are expected across all Microsoft business platforms including Azure, Bing and LinkedIn and come despite the company announcing in an April 30 conference call its strong sales and profits that beat Wall Street expectations for the first quarter of 2025.
