Microsoft is currently making what is being described as the “biggest round of job cuts” to Microsoft for five years. We can now confirm the software behemoth, much like Yungay, Peru in 1970, is doing away with 18,000 of it’s people. Coincidence?
The cuts are be the biggest in five years for Microsoft and by a hell of a long way, with the last big set of cuts being back in 2009, when former CEO Steve Ballmer cut 5,000 of its staff, five per cent of its employ.
The cuts will mostly come from Nokia, which added 25% more staff to the Microsoft workforce, —30,000 jobs were added as a result of the $7 billion deal—marketing jobs in other divisions such as Xbox may also take a hit, according to the sources. The new boss of the US company is cutting one in seven of the tech giant’s 127,000 global workforce as it attempts to integrate the Finnish business it acquired in April for $7.2bn.
“My promise to you is that we will go through this process in the most thoughtful and transparent way possible,” Nadella said in an open letter on Thursday. Nokia’s former chief executive Stephen Elop, who is now vice-president for devices at Microsoft, sent a lengthy letter to staff which began with “hello there” and was peppered with management jargon such as “ramp down”, “right-size” and outlining a desire to “help people ‘do more’”.
It is only in the final paragraphs that Elop acknowledges 12,500 professional and factory workers will be axed from Nokia’s devices and services division. “These decisions are difficult for the team, and we plan to support departing team members with severance benefits,” said Elop, who received a controversial £16m payoff from Nokia before signing up to join Microsoft.
Nadella said 13,000 staff would receive redundancy notifications in the next six months. All will receive severance pay and some will receive job placement services.