Microsoft Fires 1000 Workers In A Second Major Layoff In Three Months

Microsoft has set massive goals for this decade. They are in the middle of a huge expansion in the gaming industry with the Xbox Game Pass, the next-gen Xbox consoles, and the biggest of them all, the potential acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Even though the deal is still being investigated by anti-trust agencies, the Federal Trade Commission and the Competitions and Markets Authority, of the US and UK, respectively. The deal has still rattled Microsoft’s biggest competitor in the gaming industry, Sony. Jim Ryan of Sony has been scrambling all over to sabotage the deal.

MAJOR TAKEAWAYS

• Microsoft has fired around 1000 of its employees. This comes after they had slowed hiring since July.
• This is the second major layoff in 3 months.
• The layoff has impacted even 2-decade-old employees of the company.
• Microsoft has refused to comment on the reason for the layoff.

Despite such big investments, Microsoft is not immune to the problems faced by other big corporations. To make up for the fiscal deficit, Microsoft has fired around 1000 workers in a second major layoff in 3 months.

The laid-off workers make up less than 1% of Microsoft’s workforce of 181,000. The last layoff occurred in July of this year. Microsoft had slowed hiring since July in preparation for the layoff. Even those working there for 10-20 years are affected.

A few of the disgruntled veteran workers took to Twitter to reveal that they had been “relieved” of their jobs. Among them was KC, an employee for almost two decades.

Welp, who’s got two thumbs and just got laid off from Microsoft this morning?

2022 has been quite a year. pic.twitter.com/JfsbwKvKfV

— KC Lemson (@kclemson) October 18, 2022

The layoff has impacted all departments from the gaming division to its strategic technology unit. Microsoft’s Studio Alpha is also hit. The Studio had been working on a wargame simulation, that Microsoft was purposely building for the US Department of Defense.

Microsoft declined to reveal the number of fired workers, but a source told Axios that the number was around 1000. Commenting on the layoff, the spokesperson of the company said to Axios,

Like all companies, we evaluate our business on 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.”

This is not an isolated occurrence, other major corporations have also laid-off thousands of their workers which points to an industry-wide recession.

Furthermore, Microsoft declined to comment on the reason for the layoff. But an email, seen by Business Insider, by Zach Kramer, chief of the Engineering team of the company gives us some understanding. In the email, to a laid-off employee, he said,

There are lots of ideas that could potentially have an impact and each of us has worked very hard, but we must make tradeoffs as resources are not unlimited and time is the scarcest of them all.”

It’s not clear whether this will have any major impact on Microsoft’s future projects, including Xbox Keystone, or whether will it affect Microsoft’s Activision Deal. But what’s evident is that even a big corporation like Microsoft feels vulnerable in the face of a receding economy.

Will this layoff derail Microsoft’s gaming initiatives? Discuss in the comments below.