Microsoft lays off another 559 workers from Bellevue, Redmond offices

According to Washington State Employment Security Department, Microsoft axed another 559 employees from its Bellevue and Redmond offices on Monday. These recent job cuts are still a part of the software company’s recent announcement about the layoff of about 10,000 workers from its workforce globally.

This adds to the earlier layoff announced in the Seattle area in March. At that time, it affected Redmond, Bellevue, and Issaquah offices, which reportedly let go of employees in Visual Studio for Mac, Entertainment & Devices, Azure Edge + Platform, and other departments. Now, the latest layoff in the Bellevue and Redmond locations hit those in the security operations. Insider said in a report that the workers are under Charlie Bell, who is a former Amazon Web Services executive that just joined Microsoft almost two years ago.

With these layoffs, the number of job cuts from Microsoft’s Seattle-area offices jumped from 2,184 in early March to 2,743 today.

The news came after another report from Business Insider (via Calcalist), saying the software giant was expected to eliminate 10% of its 2,700 employees in Israel. In particular, this layoff would reportedly affect those in Israel’s R&D Center’s cybersecurity team.

These departments are just some of the ones affected by the global layoff of Microsoft. It is expected to last through the end of the company’s FY23 Q3 set on March 31. Currently, there is already a handful of departments and Microsoft-owned businesses affected by these job cuts, including LinkedIn, cloud services sales department, GitHub, Industrial Metaverse Core, 343 Industries, Mixed Reality Toolkit, AltSpaceVR, Bethesda Game Studios, and The Coalition.

Despite this, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella ensured those who would be affected to receive 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.”