Microsoft's 10,000 job cuts didn't quite do the trick
- Reference: 1689080414
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/07/11/microsoft_more_layoffs/
- Source link:
A WARN notice [1]posted in Washington shows 276 being let go in the state alone, but the global total is likely to be much higher and the cuts are much more widespread than the software giant's home state. Typically at Microsoft, a round of layoffs happen in early July following Redmond's June 30 fiscal end of year. Microsoft laid off about [2]1,000 people this time last year as it kicked off fiscal 2023. At the time, the company insisted the move was not related to fears about recession.
Anecdotally, The Reg noticed Microsoft workers [3]all over the world posting #OpenToWork status notices on LinkedIn within the last few hours from various other US states including Arizona, Texas, Florida, Philadelphia, Illinois, and Michigan, as well as places as far afield as [4]Canada and [5]Denmark . Most appear to be in sales, support, and customer roles.
[6]
We asked Microsoft to confirm numbers, geographies and roles for the job cuts, but were only told: "Organizational and workforce adjustments are a necessary and regular part of managing our business. We will continue to prioritize and invest in strategic growth areas for our future and in support of our customers and partners." The Washington layoffs take place from August 4 and from September 8, according to the notice.
[7]
[8]
CEO Satya Nadella's [9]original SEC filing about the 10,000 job losses back in January noted that they would complete at the end of FY23 Q3.
The January layoffs were to cut costs as the industry tries to pull itself out of a post-pandemic sales slowdown as well as to correct an over-hiring trend during the tech boom that accompanied global COVID-19 lockdowns. Microsoft is far from the only company to take this step, with [10]Google , [11]Salesforce , [12]Amazon , and [13]Meta , among others, also making significant cuts over the past year.
[14]
Layoffs at Twitter, estimated at [15]70 percent or more, have been the most brutal, although critics have said that other tech companies are being shortsighted in shedding jobs to create that same short-term liquidity – when liquidity would arguably be more of a pressing need for the new owner of a certain business with a non-existent profit model.
Microsoft also recently [16]froze pay for employees across the board, some of whom are [17]smarting after hearing about the company's "landmark" year and noting Microsoft's June approval of a quarterly dividend of $0.68 per share for stockholders. Document discovery in the legal case over its acquisition of [18]Activision recently revealed Nadella saying in a June 7 memo that the company hoped "to deliver in excess of 10 percent annual returns to our shareholders" by 2030.
[19]Microsofties still digesting pay freeze upset by Nadella's 'landmark year' memo
[20]Microsoft axes 10,000, already breaking bad news to staff
[21]Microsoft's Nadella: Tech is in for a rough two years
[22]Enterprise IT giant layoffs happened because 'some CEOs got ahead of their skis'
Microsoft's most recent results for Q3 of its [23]fiscal 2023 ended March 31 reported a net profit of $18.29 billion up from $16.72 billion. Revenue grew from $49.36 billion to $52.85 billion, although this does represent a slowdown.
In some somewhat heartening news, US tech job losses were down 49 percent in June, according to [24]data from job consultants Challenger, Gray and Christmas. On a less optimistic note, the outfit also noted that despite the drop, June's total – for "the sixth time this year" – still shows cuts being higher than they were the corresponding month a year earlier.
The career consultants said technology was "leading in job cut announcements" for US-based employers this year with 141,516 job roles lost so far, up 2,353 percent from the 5,769 cuts announced in the same period last year. 2023 now has the "second-highest total for the sector ever" with only 2001, the year of the "tech bubble" recession, having more. That year, 168,395 cuts were announced in technology.
[25]
"The drop in cuts is not unusual for the summer months. In fact, June is historically the slowest month on average for announcements. It is also possible that the deep job losses predicted due to inflation and interest rates will not come to pass, particularly as the Fed holds rates," said senior veep Andrew Challenger. ®
Get our [26]Tech Resources
[1] https://esd.wa.gov/about-employees/WARN?
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/12/microsoft_laying_off_staff/
[3] https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/content/?datePosted=%22past-24h%22&keywords=%23opentowork%20microsoft%20&origin=FACETED_SEARCH&sid=t%40I&sortBy=%22relevance%22
[4] https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7084222223623860226/
[5] https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7084174874927063042/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZK18pWaVQCMDVQoSxcfFbgAAA8U&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZK18pWaVQCMDVQoSxcfFbgAAA8U&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZK18pWaVQCMDVQoSxcfFbgAAA8U&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/18/microsoft_job_cuts/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/20/google_to_chop_12000_employees/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/04/salesforce_7000_job_cuts/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/20/amazon_job_cuts_costs/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/14/meta_10000_jobs_cut/
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZK18pWaVQCMDVQoSxcfFbgAAA8U&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/22/interview_digital_transformation/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/11/microsoft_pay_freeze/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/03/pay_freeze_microsoft_landmark_year/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/28/microsoft_ftc_activision/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/03/pay_freeze_microsoft_landmark_year/
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/18/microsoft_job_cuts/
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/06/microsoft_nadella_tough_years_ahead/
[22] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/18/enterprise_vendor_layoffs_because_some/
[23] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor/earnings/fy-2023-q3/press-release-webcast
[24] https://www.challengergray.com/blog/job-cuts-drop-49-in-june-2023-lowest-total-since-october-2022-is-the-tech-purge-over/
[25] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZK18pWaVQCMDVQoSxcfFbgAAA8U&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[26] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"workforce adjustments are a necessary and regular part of managing our business"
Who wants to join a company which regards layoffs as a standard ongoing practice?
With a contract outlining a nice severance package, perhaps...
Massively profitable company
Oh no, our ENORMOUS profits aren't big enough, lets sack loads of the people that earn us those profits so we see a very short term bump in profit, but then see a long term reduction due to loss of knowledge and skills...
Re: Massively profitable company
AI will make up the difference, and won't need paying. AI has magic powers and can do anything.
Re: Massively profitable company
"loads of the people that earn us those profits"
Either those people were earning the profits, in which case how do they make profits in the future, or they weren't in which case why were they employing them in the first place and wouldn't it make sense to start with the most highly paid of them?
Re: Massively profitable company
but then see a long term reduction due to loss of knowledge and skills
Have you not see Microsoft products in the last decade? That's already come home to roost.
So they're making massive profits and laying people off. That's not really a sensible solution - eventually you get overstretched and you can't maintain services any more.
If they're not careful they'll hit a tipping point, people start leaving and they can't maintain the services and the quality slips, the services slip. Seeing it now with Twitter, wonder how many people M$ needs to fire before they start circling the drain too?
"the quality slips, the services slip"
How?
Quality slipped a long time ago at MS - their standards are pretty abysmal. I get notification emails nearly every day os some 'service degradation' in one service or another, often caused by some 'code change'.
we have productivity problems
In the UK and US there is always talk about the lack of productivity....
why is productivity so low? Why are people leaving the workplace early?
Then you read things like this and Reddits antiwork subs and you realise that only a lunatic would actually do anything past the minimum for their employer.
Why bother working your backside off when you know you can be made redundant on a whim, probably by an HR bod whose scoring you on some random chart & doesn't count the times you worked until 2 am as actual "work"
Re: we have productivity problems
I generally don’t upvote Anonymous never mind comment, but yeah exactly.
Have a beer, its Tuesday afternoon.
"The next few years...
Will be very difficult as we make this transition, but when we come out the other side we will have AI."
- Nadella