Microsoft has announced plans to carry out a new round of mass layoffs, affecting thousands of employees, following an earlier wave of cuts in May. The company confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday that the move will involve reducing certain management layers.
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A Microsoft spokesperson stated that the overall impact will affect less than 4% of its workforce — approximately 9,000 employees — based on the company’s total headcount of 228,000, according to its most recent annual report.
"We continue to make organizational changes to position the company and its teams for success in light of evolving market conditions," the spokesperson said.
Back in mid-May, Microsoft revealed a restructuring plan involving “less than 3%” of employees, or around 6,000 job cuts.
The company, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, had already laid off around 2,000 employees earlier this year before these two more significant rounds of downsizing. Microsoft explained that it is gaining “agility by reducing hierarchical layers.”
Many observers have linked the job cuts to Microsoft’s increasing reliance on artificial intelligence, an area in which the company is considered a global leader.
In late April, CEO Satya Nadella revealed that 20–30% of the company’s internal code is now written by AI.
When asked about the impact of AI on the workforce, Microsoft declined to give specifics, stating only that it is focused on “eliminating redundancies by optimizing operations, products, procedures, and roles.”
The company added:
"We’re enabling employees to dedicate more time to meaningful tasks by deploying new technologies and features."
At the beginning of 2023, Microsoft had laid off about 10,000 employees, a move it described as a response to the pandemic-fueled surge in tech spending.
Despite these layoffs, Microsoft has continued to expand its workforce, reaching a record 228,000 employees in 2024 — a 63% increase from its pre-pandemic size in 2019.
