The layoffs, far larger than cuts by Microsoft last year, pile on to tens of thousands of job cuts across the tech sector.
Microsoft Corp has said it will eliminate 10,000 jobs and take a $1.2bn charge as its cloud-computing customers dissect their spending and the company braces for potential recession.
The layoffs, announced on Wednesday and far larger than cuts by Microsoft last year, piled on to tens of thousands of job cuts across the technology sector that is long past its ceaseless growth during the coronavirus pandemic.
The news comes even as the software maker is set to ramp up spending in generative artificial intelligence that the industry sees as the new bright spot.
In a note to employees, CEO Satya Nadella attempted to address the divergent realities.
Customers wanted to “optimize their digital spend to do more with less” and “exercise caution as some parts of the world are in a recession and other parts are anticipating one”, he said. “At the same time, the next major wave of computing is being born with advances in AI.”
The layoffs, affecting less than five percent of the workforce, would conclude by the end of March, with notifications beginning on Wednesday.
However, Microsoft will cut far fewer jobs than it had added during the COVID-19 pandemic as it responded to a boom in demand for its workplace software and cloud computing services with so many people working and studying from home.
Microsoft’s workforce expanded by about 36 percent in the two fiscal years following the emergence of the pandemic, growing from 163,000 workers at the end of June 2020 to 221,000 in June 2022.
Microsoft would keep hiring in “strategic areas”, Nadella said.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to be one of those areas. Nadella this week touted AI to global leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, claiming the technology would transform its products and touch people around the globe.

Aljazeera