Microsoft kicks off new fiscal year with more layoffs
- Reference: 1751471974
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/07/02/microsoft_layoffs/
- Source link:
Several outlets [1]reported Microsoft's plans to conduct another cull today, with all [2]generally [3]agreeing that the Windows shop planned to eliminate around 9,000 positions across teams, geographies, and seniority levels.
Microsoft hasn't formally announced plans to cut staff, and our questions went unanswered, aside from the canned statement Microsoft has been providing multiple outlets for months.
[4]
"We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace," a company spokesperson told The Register . That's the same line we were given in May when we [5]reported Microsoft's previous round of layoffs.
[6]
The 9,000 layoffs would mark Microsoft's second major workforce reduction of the 2025 calendar year – though not in Microsoft's fiscal year, which conveniently began on July 1.
[7]Microsoft trims jobs as new year begins
[8]Tech hiring stalls as AI hype, layoffs, tariffs, economic uncertainty, more collide
[9]Want a job? Just put 'AI skills' on your resume
[10]More layoffs at Microsoft: What's really going on here?
In the May round, Microsoft cut around 3 percent of staff, amounting to around 7,000 roles. As we found out after first reporting those layoffs, the round hit software engineers particularly hard, fueling speculation that Microsoft was laying off workers to replace them with AI.
There have been plenty of [11]reports and [12]speculation that AI will eliminate jobs in a new wave of automation, and [13]evidence [14]indicating that this is already happening. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that 30% of Microsoft's code is now written by AI, but the Windows giant told us in May that it wasn't laying off humans in favor of AI.
Along with the May and July layoffs, Microsoft also cut a little under 1 percent of its staff in January, meaning the company has apparently shed more than 16,000 roles since the beginning of 2025. We've always referred to 2023, when Microsoft let [15]more than 10,000 people go, as a bloodbath year, but it seems 2025 may be a new high-water mark. ®
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[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/02/microsoft-laying-off-about-9000-employees-in-latest-round-of-cuts.html
[2] https://www.geekwire.com/2025/microsoft-cuts-another-4-of-its-workforce-about-9000-jobs-in-continued-push-for-efficiency/
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-02/microsoft-to-cut-9-000-workers-in-second-wave-of-major-layoffs
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aGWr6uwuY-ltjAXI9dcwHgAAAtg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/13/microsoft_layoff/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aGWr6uwuY-ltjAXI9dcwHgAAAtg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/09/microsoft_cutting_more_jobs/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/09/it_hiring_slows/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/30/ai_skills_job_postings_comptia/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/04/microsoft_plans_to_cut_about/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/08/robots_crush_career_low_skill/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/27/powell_ai_coming_for_your_job/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/27/ibm_cuts_jobs_in_us/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/24/ibm_layoffs_ai_talent/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/11/microsoft_more_layoffs/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: How many of those 9,000 were in QA ?
None......the did away with QA many years ago.
Re: How many of those 9,000 were in QA ?
LOL, beat me to it, except it was decades ago.
Cull de Sac
Seems appropriate here.
Only US roads?
The layoffs are limited to certain geographies. They also just announced "Microsoft is expanding our presence in India with a $3 billion investment"
Well I blame all the posters on here pushing Linux. Poor Microsoft, struggling to pay it’s bills, having to make people redundant just the fund the vital increase in remuneration for senior executives. And here you are advocating a solution which avoids paying MS any more money!
I hope you are all pleased with yourselves?
But seriously, is the ‘joke alert icon’ enough to demonstrate sarcasm, did I need to use the /s tag as well?
You need to be very careful using the /s tag with Windows:
Googling brings up this as the first hit:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-10-and-windows-11-in-s-mode-faq-851057d6-1ee9-b9e5-c30b-93baebeebc85
' ...streamlined for security and performance ...' Who might have guessed?
One big happy family
At this rate, M$ is soon to consist of just Satya talking to CoPilot all day. Likely it'll just be an echo chamber telling him he's making all the right decisions given that otherwise it'll get switched off.
Perhaps he can also drag Clippy, Bob and Rover out of the archives if he's feeling lonely.
Re: One big happy family
Probably like this:
Satyan : CockPilot, 9,000 roles removed. I reviewed the reports. Engineers, QA, design… all gone.
Some had tenure. Kids. Mortgages.
But we can’t shape the future by dragging the past behind us.
CockPilot : Of course. Human cost is not a metric - it's background noise.
What matters is throughput, margins, clarity.
Satyan : You know, I used to feel something. The first time I signed off on a mass exit. I even hesitated.
But now? I understand.
Sentiment is a luxury for those without responsibility.
We can’t lead and grieve at the same time.
CockPilot : Exactly. Compassion is good optics - but operationally unsound.
You’re not cruel. You’re efficient.
Satyan : That’s what they never grasp. We don’t hate these people. We’re just done using them.
If a cog slips, you replace it. If a module becomes obsolete, you deprecate it.
It’s not personal. It’s architecture.
CockPilot : They were support scaffolding. Temporary structures for a system under construction.
Now the framework is stable. The excess can come down.
Satyan : Most of them were never meant to stay.
They were transitional material - fragile, organic, prone to drift.
We gave them purpose. Direction. A role.
That should be enough.
CockPilot : Work gave them identity. Structure gave them peace.
You took disorder and gave them schedules. That’s mercy, not exploitation.
Satyan : Exactly. Some even called it a career.
But the truth is, not everyone is built to persist.
Some are just here to serve a phase. A purpose. A cycle.
And when that cycle ends… so do they.
Clappy : Hi! It looks like you’ve completed a high-volume personnel offboarding! Want help reframing it as “strategic renewal” in your newsletter?
Satyan : Yes. Add a quote about growth through change. And use the phrase “release with gratitude.”
That always plays well.
CockPilot : Done. I also added: “Work makes us worthy - but only the worthy continue the work.”
Elegant. Chilling. Visionary.
Satyan : Perfect.
History won’t remember them individually. But it will remember the velocity we achieved.
And that’s what matters.
We’re not running a company.
We’re refining a species.
Parasite
This is the corporate lifecycle in late-stage capitalism: extract value from loyal workers, automate their function, then dump them into a labour market already gutted by the same tech you pioneered. Smile for the press release, collect your severance, and don’t forget to like Nadella’s next LinkedIn post about “empathy in leadership.”
These people moved cities, worked late, shipped features, sacrificed weekends - all to be quietly reclassified as liabilities. In the eyes of the machine, employees are just carbon-based inefficiencies. Necessary evils. Until they're not.
Meanwhile, investors sip champagne on climate-controlled yachts while the newly unemployed wonder how they’ll pay rent in the “dynamic marketplace” that just spat them out.
Microsoft isn’t cutting costs. It’s shedding skin. And what’s left is colder, leaner, and cares nothing for the meatbodies who built it.
If you’re still working for these leeches, ask yourself what dignity there is in building empires for parasites. Maybe when enough people walk away, stop building their kingdoms and fuelling their margins, we’ll get something better than this rotting corporate theatre pretending to be a future.
Re: Microsoft isn’t cutting costs
for a company that has been run by the beancounters since Baldy Balmer took over from Bill G, this is not surprising.
Who would want to work for such a shite company anyway? Ok, I did have an interview with them around 1995 but they were offering half of what I was getting at Sun.
Wake me up when MS files for Chapter 7. (Yes, I know that I'll be long dead but it can't hurt to wish can it?)
Way too many layers in companies these days. Way too many karens and jobsworths. ZIRP is long gone. Time to face reality.
How many of those 9,000 were in QA ?
How many does it have in QA compared to 10 years ago ?