Microsoft announced plans today to cut 3% of its global workforce. With the most recent available headcount for the company thought to be around 228,000 last June, that translates into 6,840 firings.
This latest cut follows a roughly 10,000-strong purge back in 2023 and a smaller round of firings in January this year. That latter cull was said by Microsoft to be "performance" based.
"When people are not performing, we take the appropriate action,” Microsoft said in January. However, the company told CNBC that the latest 3% reduction would not be performance based.
Somewhat counterintuitively, the move follows Microsoft reporting higher than expected profits of $25.8 billion in the most recent quarter. However, those figures cover a period that predates the uncertainties raised by the ongoing tariff escapades of the Trump administration.
Microsoft says the cuts are in part an attempt to reduce layers of management. But beyond that, it's hard to know what the motivation is beyond perhaps hedging against a tariff-driven downturn.
It's not the first time we've spoken about Microsoft firing people, as in April this year we covered the firing of the employees who protested publicly the company's continued supplying of AI tech to the Israeli military. This is one of the main reasons for Microsoft's appearance on the boycott list at the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).
This all follows a fairly grim period for Microsoft's gaming business of late. Last year, roughly 2,600 staff members were lost across Microsoft's Xbox division and its newly-acquired Activision Blizzard subsidiary, which was all part of a broader downturn for the games industry.
The Games Industry Layoffs Tracker estimates 14,600 job losses in 2024, after 10,500 in 2023. The total currently stands at 2,200 for 2025, which seems like progress of sorts, if hardly any reassurance for anyone who lost their role.
Microsoft stock is currently trading at a high for 2025, albeit down on its peak in July last year. So, the company is seems healthy overall and at the time of writing is the most valuable company in the world with a total market capitalisation of just over $3.3 trillion. But not enough cash, it seems, to hold onto those workers.
