Microsoft axes 689 workers in Seattle-area offices

Microsoft continues its global job cuts in its workforce. In its latest move, the company wants to lay off 689 workers in its Redmond, Bellevue, and Issaquah offices.

The details were shared by Washington State Employment Security Department on Monday, which also shared the past layoffs made by Microsoft in Seattle. This recent announcement will lead to a total of 2,184 job cuts in the area.

The latest layoff reportedly covered different departments of the company in said locations, including Visual Studio for Mac, Entertainment & Devices, Azure Edge + Platform, and more. According to another report, the software giant confirmed the action due to the decrease in customer demand. 

It is still part of Microsoft’s global job cut plan announced in January, which should affect 10,000 workers through the end of the company’s FY23 Q3 set on March 31. Despite this, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella promised to provide those affected with benefits.

“We are committed to ensuring all those whose roles are eliminated have our full support during these transitions,” explained Nadella in January, confirming the company’s job cuts plan. “U.S.-benefit-eligible employees will receive a variety of benefits, including above-market severance pay, continuing healthcare coverage for six months, continued vesting of stock awards for six months, career transition services, and 60 days’ notice prior to termination, regardless of whether such notice is legally required. Benefits for employees outside the U.S. will align with the employment laws in each country.”

Looking back at the past reports of these layoff rounds, the job cuts have already affected many departments and Microsoft locations. Some offices and departments that have already suffered include those in Germany, LinkedIn, cloud services sales department, GitHub, Industrial Metaverse Core, 343 Industries, Mixed Reality Toolkit, AltSpaceVR, Bethesda Game Studios, and The Coalition.