On Wednesday, Microsoft became the latest large technology business to lay off employees during a period of increasing economic uncertainty.
Reports from Bloomberg and TechCrunch disclose that the Redmond giant is "realigning business groups and positions" after the end of its fiscal year, even as it plans to increase its workforce in the coming months.
The job cuts apparently affect less than 1 percent of Microsoft's 180,000 personnel and have no discernible trend in terms of region or product division, touching departments such as customer solutions and consulting.
They take place after Microsoft curtailed hiring in the Windows, Teams, and Office groups, despite assurances that recruitment was unaffected by industry headwinds.
"A modest number of roles were eliminated today. As with any businesses, we regularly analyze our business priorities and adapt our organizational structure accordingly," Microsoft said.
In the coming year, "we will continue to invest in our business and increase headcount overall," the tech giant added.
Early in June, Microsoft reduced its revenue and profitability forecast for the fourth quarter downward, blaming the impact of foreign exchange swings.
Early in June, Microsoft reduced its revenue and profitability forecast for the fourth quarter downward, blaming the impact of foreign exchange swings.
Bloomberg reports that Microsoft has generally announced layoffs just after the July 4 holiday in the United States, as the company prepares for the new fiscal year.
The number of layoffs in the tech industry has surged over the past few months, as investors fear a recession. Companies, especially those in capital-intensive industries such as events, fintech and delivery have borne the brunt of the effect.
However, as the adverse situations continue, a ripple effect has occurred. Oracle, for example, is rumored to be contemplating a $1 billion cost-cutting program that would involve tens of thousands of layoffs.
In addition to Microsoft and Oracle, Twitter let off one-third of its recruiting staff last week. Hundreds of Tesla employees have lost their jobs during the past month.
And divisions at Meta are preparing for redundancies after managers were reportedly instructed to "move to dismiss" underperforming employees.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, deems the company to be experiencing "one of the greatest downturns... in recent history," and the company recently stated that it would reduce its projected number of new engineer recruits by approximately 30 percent this year.
Salesforce, Google, Intel, Nvidia, Lyft, Snap, Uber, and Spotify are among the major publicly traded technology businesses that paused hiring throughout the spring and summer.
