Last week we reported that Microsoft is planning for layoffs and they may axe up to 10% of their workforce. Recently, in the e-mail Satya sent to its employees, he mentioned that Microsoft will share more on the engineering and organization changes needed to focus on their bold ambition in July. In addition to the changes, we reported that they will also announce layoffs as part of their quarterly earnings results. Today, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft is planning its biggest round of job cuts in five years, and they may announce it as soon as this week.
The restructuring may end up being the biggest in Microsoft history, topping the 5,800 jobs cut in 2009, two of the people said. Some details are still being worked out, two of the people said.
Bloomberg also speculated that some of the job cuts will be in marketing departments for businesses such as the global Xbox team, said the people. The European Xbox team is based in Reading, U.K.
Backstory,
When Microsoft announced Nokia’s Devices and Services acquisition deal, approximately 32,000 people were transferred to Microsoft, including 4,700 people in Finland and 18,300 employees directly involved in manufacturing, assembly and packaging of products worldwide. Microsoft’s head count increased by over 25% – 30% as part of this single deal. Whenever such large deals happen, layoffs will follow due to restructuring. During the announcement, Steve Ballmer announced that Microsoft is planning to integrate all global marketing under Tami Reller and Mark Penn to have a unified brand and advertising strategy. Also, Finance, Legal, HR, Communications, DX / Evangelism, Customer Care and Business Development will integrate functionally at Microsoft and ICM / IT will also integrate functionally for traditional IT roles. Given overlap of lots of jobs, everyone is expecting Microsoft to announce the same.
Source: Bloomberg