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Time of India
2 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Microsoft plans thousands of job cuts next month, and these employees are likely to lose their jobs
Microsoft is preparing to eliminate thousands of jobs primarily targeting its sales division, with the cuts expected to be announced in early July as the company continues restructuring amid massive AI investments, according to people familiar with the matter. The layoffs will mark the third major workforce reduction this year for the Redmond-based tech giant, following 6,000 cuts in May and over 300 additional eliminations just weeks later. Bloomberg first reported the planned summer layoffs, with sources indicating the timing coincides with the start of Microsoft's new fiscal year beginning in July. Sales teams face heaviest impact at Microsoft Unlike previous rounds that primarily affected software engineers and product developers, the upcoming cuts will disproportionately target customer-facing roles. Microsoft's sales and marketing division employs approximately 45,000 of the company's 228,000 total workforce as of June 2024. The company signaled this shift in April when it announced plans to use third-party firms to handle more software sales to small and mid-sized customers. Sources told Bloomberg the reductions won't exclusively affect sales teams, though they will bear the brunt of the cuts. AI spending drives cost-cutting measures Microsoft's layoffs reflect the broader challenge facing tech companies balancing AI investments with operational efficiency. The company has allocated roughly $80 billion for data center spending this fiscal year while executives have pledged to Wall Street to control costs in other areas. CEO Satya Nadella recently described earlier cuts as a "realignment" rather than performance-based decisions, telling employees at an internal town hall that "this was not about people failing. It was about repositioning for what comes next." The timing follows a pattern for Microsoft, which often announces organizational changes near the end of its fiscal year. The company previously eliminated 10,000 positions in January 2023 after pandemic-driven hiring, and made additional cuts to its videogame division following the Activision Blizzard acquisition. Microsoft declined to comment on the planned layoffs, with the final number of cuts still being determined according to sources familiar with the matter. AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
India Today
2 days ago
- Business
- India Today
Microsoft to fire thousands of employees in sales next month amid AI expansion: Report
Microsoft is reportedly preparing for another wave of job cuts, signalling a fresh round of corporate restructuring as the tech giant approaches the close of its 2025 fiscal year. According to sources cited by Bloomberg, the layoffs will target thousands of roles, with a particular focus on the sales division. While the company has not formally confirmed the move, the timing aligns with its long-standing pattern of trimming roles and reorganising operations around the end of each financial year, a cycle that ends this year on June implemented, the impending cuts would follow closely on the heels of a significant workforce reduction in May, when Microsoft axed roughly 6,000 positions, about 3 per cent of its global headcount. That earlier round affected a wide swathe of departments, reportedly including engineering, customer support and Redmond-based firm, which employed approximately 2,28,000 people as of June 2024, has seen little year-on-year change in its workforce numbers. The sales and marketing segment, one of the company's largest, remained flat at 45,000 employees, behind only operations (86,000) and product research and development (81,000). Though Microsoft has yet to explicitly link its recent layoffs to its growing investment in artificial intelligence, observers believe that the ongoing shift towards AI-led automation may be reshaping how the company envisions its workforce. A recent internal research paper published by Microsoft pointed toward a future where smaller, AI-assisted teams become the norm across a variety of sectors — a potential harbinger for leaner staffing enterprises are re-evaluating legacy structures in favour of more agile, AI-enhanced approaches,' the report noted, without referencing any internal staffing restructuring trend reflects a wider shift across the tech industry, where companies are increasingly leaning on generative AI and large language models to boost productivity, streamline workflows and reduce dependence on traditional human-heavy roles, particularly in functions like sales, customer support and a key player in the AI arms race thanks to its multi-billion-dollar partnership with OpenAI, has spent the past year embedding AI across its suite of products, from Microsoft 365 and Azure to its Copilot productivity assistant. While these tools are positioned as value-adds for customers, they may also facilitate a quieter transformation of the company's workforce forthcoming job cuts, if confirmed, would mark yet another chapter in Microsoft's recent strategy of balancing ambitious technological investment with a leaner operating model. For employees in the firing line, however, it's likely to be a difficult start to the summer.
Axios
27-05-2025
- Business
- Axios
Microsoft and Costco named among most trusted brands
Some Seattle-area companies rank among the world's most trusted big brands, according to the latest Axios Harris Poll 100 reputation rankings. How it works: The survey is the result of a partnership between Axios and Harris Poll to gauge the reputation of the most visible brands in America, based on 20 years of Harris Poll research. Zoom in: Redmond-based Microsoft ranked as the No. 3 most trusted company among this year's top 100 brands, jumping 15 spots from last year. Costco — headquartered in Issaquah — ranked fifth, up from No. 11 last year. Nintendo and Amazon both ranked in the top 20, placing them in the "very good" reputation category. T-Mobile and Starbucks were 54th and 71st, respectively. Yes, but: Boeing ranked 88th, in the "very poor" category. The aerospace giant, which was founded in Seattle and has factories in Renton and Everett, has struggled in recent years to rebound from a series of quality and safety problems. Those incidents included a door plug blowout that caused an airplane panel to fly off mid-flight in January 2024, and two 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.
India Today
16-05-2025
- Business
- India Today
Big tech layoffs: Microsoft, Amazon, Google are on layoff spree, over 61000 jobs slashed in 2025
The tech industry is once again facing a wave of widespread layoffs. Big tech players including Microsoft, Amazon and Google are slashing thousands of jobs again amid unstable economic conditions. As revenues take a hit, and artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes offices and work, companies are making deep cuts to improve efficiency and redirect their to layoff tracker so far in 2025, over 61,220 tech workers have been laid off across 130 companies. Here is a brief look at all the recent layoffs announced by big tech companies like Microsoft and Google. advertisementMicrosoft announces mass layoffsPerhaps the most notable of layoffs in this round have been announced by Microsoft. On 13 May, the Redmond-based giant announced its decision to cut 6,000 jobs — its largest layoff since 2023 — impacting about 3 per cent of its global workforce of 228,000. These layoffs have affected employees across all levels and locations, including nearly 2,000 in Washington state alone. Microsoft says that it is restructuring teams to stay competitive in what it describes as a 'dynamic marketplace.' The company has clarified that the latest job cuts are not performance-related but are instead part of efforts to reduce layers of management and increase the ratio of engineers to non-technical earlier in January, Microsoft had also carried out smaller performance-based layoffs and trimmed roles in the gaming and sales announces more job cutsadvertisementGoogle has been trimming large and small numbers of employees following the mass layoffs in 2023. Recently, the company joined the layoff trend again, cutting approximately 200 jobs from its global business unit in early May. This team handles sales and partnerships and is now undergoing restructuring to 'drive greater collaboration' and serve customers more effectively, Reuters noted in a layoffs at Google follow a series of workforce reductions earlier this year, including hundreds of jobs in its Platforms & Devices unit (Android, Pixel, Chrome) in April, voluntary exits, and cuts in its cloud division in February. Notably, the company's parent, Alphabet, laid off 12,000 workers — 6 per cent of its global workforce — in January also slashing jobsNews of another round of layoffs came from Amazon as well this month, as the company laid off around 100 employees from its Devices and Services unit, which oversees products like Echo speakers, Alexa, Kindle, and Zoox self-driving cars. According to the company, these layoffs were needed to align better with its product roadmap and streamline latest layoffs follow earlier workforce reductions which happened earlier this year in 2025 and continue a broader effort to eliminate what the company called 'unnecessary layers' in its organisational announces job cutsAnother notable layoff announcement came from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, which joined the trend last week. It confirmed in an email to its employees that it is laying off 5 per cent of its workforce to sharpen focus on profitability and long-term success. The company did not provide an exact number but emphasised the changes are part of a strategic workforce realignment.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Microsoft layoffs hit its Silicon Valley workforce
Microsoft is slashing its Silicon Valley workforce. The tech giant, which is based in Washington but also has Bay Area offices, is cutting 122 positions in Silicon Valley, according to a layoff notice sent to the California Employment Development Department this week. Microsoft cited a reorganization and restructuring within the company as the reason for the job cuts. Bay Area Microsoft employees, who will lose their jobs in July, were working remotely or out of offices in Mountain View and Santa Clara, Calif. Microsoft also owns LinkedIn, a social network for professionals, that is based in Sunnyvale. The layoffs in California make up a fraction of the 6,000 workers the Redmond-based tech company is cutting. Microsoft said Tuesday that it's shedding roughly 3% of its global workforce, making it one of the company's largest job cuts in two years. It's the latest in a series of layoffs that continue to rattle the tech industry since 2022. Read more: Bay Area tech workers thought their jobs were safe. Then the 'golden handcuffs' came off The job cuts come as the rise of artificial intelligence, which can also generate code, is raising questions about how technology will impact software engineers and other workers. Software engineering roles made up 53% of Microsoft's job cuts in Silicon Valley, according to data provided to the EDD. Positions in product management, applied sciences, electrical engineering and other fields were also eliminated. In April, Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella said that as much as 30% of the company's code is written by AI during a conversation with Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg at the social network's AI developer conference. Zuckerberg has also said that he thinks AI will be able to write code like a mid-level engineer in 2025. As Microsoft competes with other major tech companies such as Google and Meta to release more popular AI-powered tools, the company said it's trying to increase how fast it moves by reducing the number of managers. 'We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace," Jeff Jones, a Microsoft spokesperson, said in a statement. The company also said it's trying to reduce redundancies while also empowering employees to spend time on more meaningful work by leveraging technology. As of June, Microsoft employed 228,000 full-time workers and more than half of those workers were in the United States, the company's annual report said. Microsoft reported revenue of $70 billion for the third quarter of its fiscal year ending in March, a 13% increase compared to the same period last year. The company's net income was $26 billion, up 16% year over year. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Sign up for our Wide Shot newsletter to get the latest entertainment business news, analysis and insights. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
