Microsoft to lay off 10,000 employees amid tech sector retrenchment
Christopher Hutton
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Microsoft is eliminating thousands of jobs to cut the excess created by previous hiring, a downsizing that comes as it also pursues the development of artificial intelligence.
Microsoft announced Wednesday that it was laying off 10,000 jobs from its global workforce, the largest series of job cuts in the last eight years.
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“These are the kinds of hard choices we have made throughout our 47-year history to remain a consequential company in this industry that is unforgiving to anyone who doesn’t adapt to platform shifts,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote in a Wednesday blog post.
The company also stated that it would ensure that all cut employees receive appropriate benefits, including severance pay, six months of healthcare, and career transition services. These layoff benefits will cost the company $1.2 billion.
The company is considering a $10 billion investment into OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT. Nadella said on Tuesday that Windows intends to incorporate AI into all its future products.
The cuts come years after Microsoft expanded its team significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The software company has grown its team by 75,000 since 2019 due to a surge of interest in online services and cloud computing. Microsoft previously cut hundreds of jobs in October, in the first few months of what some called a “tech recession.”
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Microsoft is not the only tech company to make cuts. Amazon is expected to begin a large round of layoffs on Wednesday, including cutting 18,000 jobs from its corporate workforce. The payment company Stripe announced that it was laying off 1,000 employees, or 14% of its labor force. The commerce company Salesforce also announced that it was cutting 10% of its workers.