Tech giant Microsoft is reportedly set to join the ongoing layoff season at technology companies, and is preparing to fire nearly 11,000 employees this week amid the global economic slowdown. Sky News reported that the company run by Satya Nadella is finalising plans to become the latest technology giant to reduce its workforce during this difficult period. Microsoft currently employs more than 220,000 people, including 6,000 in the UK.
The company is contemplating reducing roughly 5 per cent of its workforce, which, if accurate, would equate to approximately 11,000 jobs. It is expected that the company will announce the layoffs on Wednesday, ahead of its quarterly earnings next week. Nadella recently warned of two years of challenges ahead for the tech industry. In an interview with CNBC, he admitted that Microsoft wasn’t immune to the global changes. He said, “The next two years are probably going to be the most challenging.”
In recent weeks, a number of large tech companies have laid off employees, with Amazon cutting 18,000 jobs and cloud software provider Salesforce cutting more than 7,000 jobs.
The rate of layoffs in the technology sector has been increasing globally, with more than 1,600 tech employees being laid off per day on average in 2023. This has led to fears of a global economic meltdown and recession. This trend has begun the year 2023 on a bad note for tech workers globally and 91 companies have laid off more than 24,000 tech employees in the first 15 days of this month, signalling worse days ahead.
