Microsoft, the third biggest company in the world, is laying off a lot of people, according to a report by Axios.
Precisely how many people are being put out of work is unclear. Axios’s source said the newly unemployed will number “under 1,000,” which is an odd phrasing, since it could mean just about anything, but it’s pretty clear that the total is significant. The Washington Post reports that there have been social media posts by disgruntled former employees. The Post also quotes Microsoft staffers who say the jobs being cut — particularly in the company’s Xbox and military simulation divisions — seemed safe, and that the layoffs came as a surprise.
This round of layoffs comes after Microsoft slashed about 1 percent of its payroll this past July, a move that was downplayed by a CNBC headline as a “small percentage.”
As my colleague Christianna Silva detailed last month, Microsoft is far from alone among tech companies in laying off employees this year. Twitter, Substack, Zillow, Clubhouse, Netflix, and countless others have cut staff in what appears to be an industry-wide trend.
According to Crunchbase’s 2022 tech layoffs tracker, it looks like at least 44,000 people have been laid off in the tech world this year — though tracking layoffs is an inexact science. About 5,000 of those job losses were concentrated at the largest perpetrator of layoffs in 2022: The fintech company Better, which has cut approximately half its payroll this year according to Crunchbase.
In its official statement to Axios on Monday evening, Microsoft said, “Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly. We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead.”