Microsoft is about to lay off thousands of employees

Business Insider quoted a close source as saying that the expected cut is smaller than a similar one last year. The number of fired employees accounts for less than 2.5% of the company's total 220,000 employees, or less than 5,500 people. Microsoft will announce the plan next week, but the specific time has not been determined.

In previous years, the world's largest software corporation had adjusted its personnel several times. Last year, the company laid off 6,000 people in May, then added 9,000 positions, or 4% of its workforce, in July.

Microsoft is considered to be making efforts to control costs in the context of increasing investment in AI. The company is also under pressure from Wall Street with concerns that AI could replace many software services, including some Microsoft products. The company's shares have fallen about 19% over the past month, the strongest since the dot-com bubble.

At the beginning of the year, the company announced a voluntary retirement program, offering to pay a support amount to employees level 67 or below in the US with a combined age and seniority of 70 years or more. About 7% of the company's 125,000 U.S. employees, or nearly 9,000 people, are eligible to participate, and a third have accepted the program. This helps the company's personnel reduction rate this year to be lower than last year.

The new round of cuts is expected to affect Xbox sales, consulting and gaming departments. Xbox's layoffs were predicted in advance, when new leader Asha Sharma called for "restructuring", saying that this department was not in good shape due to declining revenue.

In May, Meta also conducted large-scale layoffs, affecting about 8,000 employees globally. As noted by the New York Times, Singapore was the place where employees first received the dismissal email, at around 4:00 a.m. on May 20.

In an email to employees obtained by Business Insider, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained that the cuts were to "offset other investments" of the company. He said he was also mentally affected by the layoffs, and is devoting a lot of time to ensuring the best possible management, as well as affirming that there will be no more layoffs across the company this year.

According to Reuters, many US companies have downsized in the past few months. The wave of layoffs took place in many fields such as technology, media, and finance, in the context of businesses strengthening cost control and investing heavily in AI. According to a report this week by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, nearly a third of this year's total job losses were in the technology sector, while AI was the leading reason in June, also for the fourth consecutive month.

Thu Thao compiled