Microsoft has become the latest tech company to layoff a portion of its staff.
According to a new report from Axios, Microsoft has laid off somewhere short of 1,000 members of staff. These cuts span a number of divisions across various countries, and cover a range of levels.
Journalist Tom Warren has confirmed these reports, and claims to have heard that affected departments include “Experiences + Devices, Xbox, legal, strategic tech positions, and elsewhere”. He also claims that “some veterans and truly talented teams are impacted”.
If you were to take this Microsoft staff layoff as read, it would represent a tiny fraction of its 221,000-strong workforce. Still, it’s a significant cull, and it follows on from the news in August that the company had cut its entire 200-strong Modern Life Experiences team.
More broadly, Microsoft is just the latest of many major tech companies to be downsizing in 2022. Facebook parent company Meta, Google parent company Alphabet, and Sony have all experienced difficulties with falling revenue this year, leading to numerous staff cuts.
Rising costs, inflation, and the ongoing European energy crisis and war in Ukraine off the back of the recent Covid crisis and supply chain difficulties have led to a significant downturn across the tech industry.
“Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly,” a Microsoft spokesperson said. “We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead.”
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
