Posted on 01/18/2023 11:25:20 AM PST by Red Badger
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed on Wednesday morning that the company would dismiss some 10,000 employees over the next several months to reduce costs amid a challenging economic climate.
The layoffs will impact approximately 5% of the software company’s overall workforce, which currently includes 122,000 domestic employees and 99,000 international employees. Microsoft confirmed the layoffs in a regulatory filing and a memo to staff members in which Nadella said the company would battle economic headwinds while investing in new technology.
“This is the context in which we as a company must strive to deliver results on an ongoing basis, while investing in our long-term opportunity,” Nadella told employees. “We will align our cost structure with our revenue and where we see customer demand … It’s important to note that while we are eliminating roles in some areas, we will continue to hire in key strategic areas.”
Shares for Microsoft were flat in the first hour of trading on Wednesday morning against a 0.5% increase in the S&P 500 and a 0.8% increase in the technology-heavy NASDAQ. The company’s stock price fell more than 20% over the past year against a 12% decline in the former index and a 22% drop in the latter.
Nadella added that the company would “continue to invest in strategic areas for our future, meaning we are allocating both our capital and talent to areas of secular growth and long-term competitiveness for the company, while divesting in other areas.” He remarked that artificial intelligence represents “the next major wave in computing” and said Microsoft is working to create platforms using the world’s most advanced models.
Microsoft experienced a 14% decrease in net income as of the first quarter of fiscal year 2023 even as revenues increased 11%, according to an earnings report.
“In a world facing increasing headwinds, digital technology is the ultimate tailwind,” Nadella said. “In this environment, we’re focused on helping our customers do more with less, while investing in secular growth areas and managing our cost structure in a disciplined way.”
Microsoft was among several leading companies in the technology industry to introduce layoffs and hiring freezes last year. Firms in the sector dismissed more than 90,000 workers, according to a report from CrunchBase, which included both small ventures and established firms such as Amazon and Tesla. Some investors have criticized technology companies for rapidly expanding payrolls, calling for a reduction in headcount to match dismal market forecasts.
The layoffs come one month after officials at the Federal Trade Commission blocked Microsoft from acquiring video game developer Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, claiming that the merger would enable the company to reduce market competition with subsidiary Xbox. Microsoft President Brad Smith contested the agency’s sentiments in a statement claiming that the firm had already addressed antitrust worries from regulators.
“We continue to believe that our deal to acquire Activision Blizzard will expand competition and create more opportunities for gamers and game developers,” he remarked. “While we believe in giving peace a chance, we have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present it in court.”
Run for your lives! The end is near! ;D
In regards to the demographic being laid off from so-called tech, wokeness will be quieted somewhat.
Too much driftwood in the river.
Yet they are still lobbying for more H-1B visas. Curious...
Have they tried to reboot?
They have no hope of getting a job. They already learned to code.
I live about 7 miles south of intersection of US 50 & US 95-A in N Nevada.
It was announced last week that Microsoft has purchased 274 acres along US 50—West of out little crossroads—for a DATA CENTER-—CLOUD operation.
Microsoft will only fire white, Christian, heterosexual, males. It helps to preserve big techs monopolies. Because they know the Indians are not innovative people. This is not an exaggeration.
Microsoft regularly fires 10% of their workforce. It’s part of their corporate culture.
Well I guess they can learn to code.
The bulk of layoffs known at present are in HoloLens, Edge, marketing, and gaming.
My suggestion is to fire anyone involved in the release of windows 11.
The international employees are safe.
how many people does it take to write sh!ty code anyway???
I rarely use Microsoft products, being in the academic world, not the corporate world. Latex is vastly better than Word (and free) and there are adequate substitutes for Excel and PowerPoint. But I needed to get MS365 for a consulting job I was working on. I couldn’t believe they charge an annual subscription fee. I dumped it as soon as I could.
Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers are heading for a big problem and very soon.
People have their computers that are extremely fast, versatile and have huge amounts of memory. Plus more memory can be bought extremely cheap.
There is no reason to ‘upgrade’ like in the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s. How much faster do you need to scroll thru FakeBook or TikTok?
Will a word processor work better for writing a letter if the computer is twice as fast?
The computers that exist now are adequate for what people need to do on a daily basis. The market is saturated.
Remember when VCR’s were $300? When market saturation was reached the prices dropped to less than a hundred dollars and even less than $50. They could be made faster than they could be sold. Same with computers.
Microsoft will lose revenue slowly until they become just a services company.
IBM foresaw this 20 years ago when they sold their PC business to Lenovo (China).
When everyone has a laptop, smartphone, and whatever else, they won’t need to buy a new one for a long, long time................
Not true. Former insider here.
Musk apparently flushed 70% of Tweater heads and despite a lot of bedwetting in the biz press, it appears to continue working fairly well.
I’m guessing other tech companies are thinking at least 10% cuts might be OK.
Hopefully they will release Windows 12 that will be a big seller as it will solve all the mess that is Windows 10 and 11 layout...... yeah right.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.