With revenue from software sales slowing and new businesses (artificial intelligence and game development) still in their early stages, mass layoffs were only a matter of time at Microsoft.
Indeed, on the one hand, the regulatory bodies have not fully approved the purchase of the video game developer Activision Blizzard and, on the other, the investment in OpenAI, a specialist in artificial intelligence, is just beginning to be implemented at Microsoft, which makes income, for those businesses, is not yet seen.
In parallel, the company founded by Bill Gates said late last year that a drop in sales of personal computers and the strength of the dollar were a drag on its expansion and a problem for its quarterly revenue.
In this context, it is not unreasonable to think that the massive layoffs were going to reach Microsoft Corp as they did to dozens of other technology companies.
According to The Wall Street Journal and other financial means of the United States, Microsoft plans to announce layoffs as soon as Wednesday morning, January 18.
Microsoft has already carried out more than one round of layoffs last year, but never announced how many jobs it cut.
The July 2022 round of mass layoffs affected less than 1 percent of the total workforce of more than 200,000 people, the company had stated at the time.
skynewsFor its part, it reported in early January 2023 that Microsoft planned to announce layoffs this week.
Mass layoffs as a solution
Mass layoffs are a constant in 2022 and 2023, not only in the technology sector, but also in the banking sector.
The drop in the level of activity and the threat of a recession that continues the inflationary period are the causes of a general layoff of employees that promises to be a big problem for the world economy.
When a company faces an economic crisis like the one that is taking place right now, one of the immediate measures to reduce costs is to cut jobs. This means laying off a significant number of workers in order to reduce labor spending and stem the decline in benefits.
The layoffs have been affecting companies across the industry. Amazon.com, for example, announced that it would lay off 18,000 people.
Earlier, Salesforce announced plans to lay off 8,000 employees, or 10 percent of its global workforce, marking the largest downsizing in company history.
This Tuesday, January 17, Unity Software said it would lay off 280 employees. In mid-2022, the same provider of video game creation tools had announced layoffs: there were 220 jobs.
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