Facing pressure from new demand, global technology major Microsoft has announced a major job cut down, a one of its kind in the last five years. According to the company, the economic outlook of the company has changed.
Earlier in May, Microsoft told senior executives to get permissions before hiring new employees. Now as per reports Microsoft has cut a small percentage of jobs across functions. The official reason is: “strategic realignment”.
As per Microsoft spokesperson, “Today we notified a small number of employees that their roles have been eliminated. This was a result of a strategic realignment, and, like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis. We continue to invest in certain areas and grow headcount in the year ahead.”
The company has, however, clarified that the job cuts are a small percentage — about 1% — of the total workforce at Microsoft, which in June 2021 was close 1.81 lakh across the world.
Interestingly, the job cuts have coincided with the start of the fiscal year for the company. Every year Microsoft's fiscal year starts from July 1. Last time, Microsoft announced job cuts it was back in 2017. Back then, Microsoft did restructuring on a large scale, which led to thousands of job cuts. This time around the number is relatively small.
