- Facing an uncertain global economy and slowing revenue growth, technology companies have picked up the pace of layoffs in 2023.
- Microsoft has laid off 276 employees, mostly in customer service, support, and sales teams, in a new job cut round.
- The fresh job cuts “go beyond the 10,000 global layoffs announced by Microsoft on January 18,” reports Geek Wire.
- In May, Microsoft slashed 158 jobs in Washington State which were not part of the 10,000 announced earlier.
- The tech giant had more than 220,000 employees as reported earlier this year.
Facing an uncertain global economy and slowing revenue growth, technology companies have picked up the pace of layoffs in 2023, with total staff cuts now greater than all tech company job losses last year.
Though technology companies announced massive layoffs last year, 2023 has been much worse. Layoffs have far outpaced last year’s cuts, as tech giants including Amazon, Facebook parent company Meta, Microsoft, Google, IBM, SAP, and Salesforce, as well as many smaller companies, announce sweeping job cuts. Big Tech went on a hiring binge during the pandemic when lockdowns sparked a tech buying spree to support remote work and an uptick in e-commerce, and now they face revenue declines.
Microsoft laid off 276 employees in Washington State. The cuts will affect 210 workers in the company’s Bellevue and Redmond offices and 66 virtual staffers, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN).
“Organizational and workforce adjustments are a necessary and regular part of managing our business,’ a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. “We will continue to prioritize and invest in strategic growth areas for our future and in support of our customers and partners,” the spokesperson added. Several posts on the leading professional networking platform LinkedIn revealed job cuts that targeted customer support and sales jobs across teams.
In May, Microsoft slashed 158 jobs in Washington State which were not part of the 10,000 announced earlier. According to reports, more than 2,700 Seattle-area workers were affected by the layoffs announced earlier this year. Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella in January announced that the company will be “making changes that will result in the reduction of our overall workforce by 10,000 jobs through the end of FY23, third quarter.
The tech giant had more than 220,000 employees as reported earlier this year.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, initiated another round of layoffs, in the month of April this year. These were previously announced, the difference this time is that many of the cuts reportedly affect technical employees. The latest wave of job cuts saw approximately 4,000 employees laid off from the company, including those in user experience, software engineering, graphics programming, and gameplay programming.
(With inputs from agencies)
