Close on the heels of laying off 1800 employees as part of a restructuring exercise, Microsoft has reportedly laid off 200 more.
This time, it has asked employees from its R&D team to look for alternate positions within the Company within two months or else be ready to accept a severance. Even contractual employees have been impacted this time.
This is rather unexpected because at the time of laying off the first lot of 1800, Microsoft had revealed plans to hire more people soon. In the earlier round, about one per cent of the workforce — across consulting, customer and partner solutions — was rendered jobless,
According to Business Inside, this time, the impacted employees are from the Company’s Modern Life Experiences (MLX) group, which was formed about four years ago to focus on customer retention.
The tech giant had already slowed down hiring in July, citing a need for realignment.
Recently, it was reported that the software company is trying to cut costs and expenditure. It has asked employees to control expenditure on external training, business travel and official get-togethers. Media reports suggest that managers have already begun paying for the food and drinks for team meets from their own pockets instead of billing the same to the Company.
The fear of recession seems to be the reason for companies freezing or pausing hiring and resorting to layoffs.
