Microsoft set to lay off thousands of employees

From The Verge: Microsoft is preparing to announce job cuts tomorrow. Sky News reports that thousands of roles will be cut, with the software giant said to be looking at cutting around 5 percent of its workforce. With more than 220,000 employees at Microsoft, that could mean more than 10,000 layoffs.

While Sky News doesn’t name an exact date for the expected cuts, a source familiar with Microsoft’s plans tells The Verge that the company will likely announce layoffs on Wednesday, ahead of its quarterly earnings next week.

Bloomberg is also reporting that a number of layoffs will be announced in Microsoft’s engineering divisions tomorrow. The job cuts are said to be “significantly larger” than the 1 percent cut to Microsoft’s workforce last year. The previous job cuts affected positions in consulting and customer and partner solutions.

Microsoft is the latest big tech company to face a challenging economy, and the job cuts will come just days after Microsoft implemented a new unlimited time off policy. Microsoft employees that have an unused vacation balance will get a one-time payout in April, and managers will be able to approve unlimited “Discretionary Time Off.”

View: Full Article