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Microsoft Businesses

Microsoft is Cutting 3% of All Workers (cnbc.com) 54

Posted by msmash from the more-cuts dept.
Microsoft is laying off 3% of employees across all levels and geographies, the company said Tuesday. "We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace," a spokesperson told CNBC. Microsoft had 228,000 employees worldwide at the end of June, meaning that the move will affect thousands of employees.

Microsoft is Cutting 3% of All Workers More | Reply

Microsoft is Cutting 3% of All Workers

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  • ....hasn't paid off.

    Cetainly more than these 3% will have to go later this year.

    • Wait, I thought boosting worker productivity (or taking over entirely) so you can trim the headcount was the promise of AI that we're all upset about. Then this is not a failure, but a success.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Hadlock ( 143607 )

        No, they hired a guy to run their AI department and it's been going very poorly. If you're looking at "abject failures of AI trying to win in the market" this isn't it, the guy they hired to run their AI division is just bad at running AI divisions at microsoft. Even their CFO was critical of the guy last week in a public meeting. People at least critisize apple's lack of interest in AI, microsoft is doing so poorly they're not even part of the conversation.

    • Most of their AI gamble is tied up in OpenAI though. I doubt this will have much further impact. Microsoft doesn't have much of a history of layoffs. The pandemic has exposed a lot of malinvestment that's still unwinding.

    • 3% isn't unreasonable, and is likely undershooting. Their hiring process isn't perfect and they'll bring on some people they shouldn't have or they'll have some employees who stopped caring for whatever reason and aren't contributing. These people will be replaced by someone else that MS hopes is going to do a better job. The replacement hiring won't get any news coverage though.

      • 3% isn't unreasonable, and is likely undershooting. Their hiring process isn't perfect and they'll bring on some people they shouldn't have or they'll have some employees who stopped caring for whatever reason and aren't contributing. These people will be replaced by someone else that MS hopes is going to do a better job. The replacement hiring won't get any news coverage though.

        If the same managers who did the hiring are now doing the firing, are we assuming that their prior incompetence in hiring has now magically transformed into surgical precision in firing? Mass layoffs, whether by Microsoft or DOGE or anyone, tends to be a process of throwing a hatchet at a dartboard. The one saving grace (depending on one's viewpoint) is that the stock price will go up because mass layoffs are an accounting procedure rather than a productivity one.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      But there was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom! [youtube.com] I didn't hear the kaboom. Instead, the AI bubble currently has a slow hissing leak. Will it actually die gradually instead of the giant crashes of past bubbles? Or is the Kaboom still around the corner?...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by CEC-P ( 10248912 )
      I was just thinking that. It damn well better be Copilot people. I have a suspicion they're replacing low level employees with copilot, which is basically the opposite.

  • Will they fire the CEO and marketing? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2025 @10:50AM (#65373231)

    And what passes for "security experts" and "UI experts" with these cretins, please? No? Just more enshittification? Well. No surprise, really.

    • And the company is plenty profitable. The CEO isn't firing people because mistakes were made resulting in declining revenue. They're doing it because of recession is coming and they're going to need a ton of cash for stock BuyBacks to protect wealthy investors.

      The economy is fundamentally set up against you. And you probably voted for it if you're around here. I think most of us who haven't figured that out are just too old now. You get incredibly stubborn past the age of 40. If that teenage stubbornnes

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Well, I do not mind people spending money on crappy overpriced tools, as long as I do not have to use them. The last one I use is now Teams, no Word, Excel, Office or PowerPoint. Since I video-stream lectures, I am not sure In-Browser on Linux will work well enough there and unfortunately, the European anti-trust people seem to be satisfied with Teams being available via browser. But I may lock that remaining Windows installation into a VM. Will try this summer when lectures are paused.

        I also have to admit

    • Re: Will they fire the CEO and marketing? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2025 @11:43AM (#65373375) Homepage

      Why would they fire the CEO? Microsoft has performed amazingly under Nadella and Hood.

      If you don't like MS's products, stop using them. Don't complain about a CEO that's delivering what their customers want.

      I stopped using Windows like 25 years ago. But I do hold a notable amount of MSFT. I have no use for their products, but I'm not going to sit here and complain that they don't make MS Linux; that's not what the paying customers want.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        You do not understand how a society works, do you? Too much of that "amazing performance" and everything burns donwn...

        • If you think MS is going to burn down, short their stock and make tons of money.

          I'll continue to hold and we'll see how it goes.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Well, if you could read you would have actually seen that was not what I wrote. Pathetic. But yes, you are definitely part of the problem.

            • Yeah, I've heard people bitching about MS for 30 years now, and many have regularly made claims that THIS time they've gone too far and everyone's going to stop using their products. Hasn't happened yet.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by gweihir ( 88907 )

                You still do not get it. I was not talking MS, I was talking about society as a whole. Too much enshittification by too many enterprises and that is it. But how would you even begin to understand?

  • 3% (Score:5, Funny)

    by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2025 @10:57AM (#65373249)

    So, if you're 6 feet tall, your hair is going to be cut 2" shorter. Not so great for bald guys.

  • The only question is how bad and whether the Democrats will take back the House and Senate so that they can limit the damage for his last two years.

    I get that Trump won because of voter suppression but he still had 77 million people voting for him.

    And we've got hard numbers about how many people voted for him because they were panicking over trans girls and it was a lot.

    If you're one of them congratulations you're a 50 year old man who's about to lose his job in the worst economy America has kno

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by MikeD227 ( 546924 )
      This, ladies and gentlemen, is what Trump Derangement Syndrome looks like.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by fredrated ( 639554 )

        As opposed to Trump Devotion Syndrome? The devotion syndrome, i.e., cult following, is way more dangerous.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by deKernel ( 65640 )

          You do realize that there is a middle ground right? You seem to represent the biggest issue in politics today, and that is you are either on my side, or you are my enemy...no middle ground.

          • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

            by thaylin ( 555395 )

            You just created a strawman.

          • Trump is a guy with 26 credible rape accusations one of which is against two 13 year old girls, 34 felony convictions who gives out classified documents as party favors and has accepted somewhere in the ballpark of 2.5 billion dollars in bribes.

            Also he is actively trying to institute martial law and suspend habeas corpus.

            If you don't think we've crossed the red line we're done here. You are so far gone there is literally no discussion to be had. You're just a fascist now and a Nazi and congratulatio

            • Trump is a guy with 26 credible rape accusations one of which is against two 13 year old girls, 34 felony convictions who gives out classified documents as party favors and has accepted somewhere in the ballpark of 2.5 billion dollars in bribes.

              And if he were still a Democrat the Dereangement folks would be embracing and defending him. Basically the Derangement and Devotion cults would swap memberships.

              • The Democrats kicked Kirsten Sinema to the curb the moment it became obvious she was a moderate Republican. They're in the process of doing the same with fetterman. The only hypocrites in this country are Republicans. I don't know if I'd call them hypocrites though they don't have the slightest idea of what hypocrisy even is they just do it as naturally as breathing
        • Don't bother trying. It's a thought terminating cliche it's explicitly designed to prevent thought and it works because that's what thought terminating cliches do.

          Once you understand what a thought terminating cliche is everything about Trump supporters starts to make sense.

          They have reams and reams of them. Fun little phrases they can say anytime anyone tries to make them think about or question dear leader in a negative light.

          They are completely unreachable and it's a waste of time to even try

        • As opposed to Trump Devotion Syndrome? The devotion syndrome, i.e., cult following, is way more dangerous.

          No, equally dangerous, same sort of people. Derangement and Devotion are both cult followings. Nothing more than rival gangs existing dual to mutual hate. Practicing dogmatic opposition to anything the other advocates.

      • Is what a thought terminating cliche looks like.
    • The Nasdaq closed 1.85% higher today.

  • That are laying off those that underperform. 10 years ago every tech company was rapidly hiring and they didn't care who they got, now that the space isn't its competitive they are laying off those who don't perform and calling it restructuring

    • IF they are actually doing that in a serious way, then managers will get fired. Otherwise it's just painting the deck of the Titanic.

  • C Suite (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ThurstonMoore ( 605470 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2025 @11:15AM (#65373303)

    I bet they don't cut 3% of the C suite.

  • If you don't have any products or services you wish to develop and can't grow your business then what other choice is there but to reduce costs like payroll.

    If on the other hand you are managing a successful business, you will find things for people to do that have a higher return than what you spend on their salary.

    • If on the other hand you are managing a successful business, you will find things for people to do that have a higher return than what you spend on their salary.

      I'd say up to a certain point, and within a certain company size and culture. It sucks, but why would you waste desk space on a person that brings in 1 dollar of profit when the average employee brings in 5 (and maybe the next hire will be above average)?

  • Shakespeare! (Score:3)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2025 @01:44PM (#65373761)

    Microsoft is Cutting 3% of All Workers

    Workers: "If you cut us, do we not bleed?"

    Yes, I'm aware that the Bard used "prick" instead of "cut". But it seems to me that Microsoft has more than enough pricks to cover that base...

  • A little pruning of the headcount tree during challenging times should be expected. It's just good business.

    On the other hand, if it continues with WARN filings every 3-6 months, that's indicative of management failure.

    The thing about working for fortune 500 companies as a (rare) regular employee, is that every little detail about your work is tracked and recorded. I Then you are ranked against all other regular employees (Bout you may not know where you are in the rankings if they don't use stack ranking)

  • Lower ceilings, less building materials. Win.

    -Oh what?
  • It's interesting that Slashdot posts this mention of Microsoft firing this small fraction of staff, but there was never coverage of Twitter firing more than 50% of its staff.

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