Microsoft To Start Layoffs From Wednesday: Reports

Tech giant Microsoft may start its layoffs on Wednesday as the company prepares for a slowdown much like its peers in the tech space including Amazon, Salesforce and Meta, according to a Bloomberg report.

Though the company has already indulged in some workforce slashes in the past one year, they have impacted less than 1 per cent of Microsoft employees. According to the report, the cuts now will have larger impact than in the recent past.

On 4 January, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that his company would begin to lay off 18,000 of the workforce, which was a significant jump from the previously reported 10,000 job cuts. In November, Meta had announced that its job cuts would impact 11,000 people or about 13 per cent of its workforce.

According to layoff tracking website Layoffs.fyi, the year 2023 has begun on a bad note with over 24,000 people losing their jobs in the tech industry in the first 15 days of the new year. The job cuts were dominated by companies such as Amazon, Salesforce and Coinbase.

Earlier in January, Salesforce had announced that it would cut 10 per cent (~8,000 people) of its workforce.

"Many of these companies were spending money like 1980's Rock Stars and now need to reign in the expense controls ahead of a softer (macro-economic conditions)," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors.