Microsoft to lay off nearly 11K employees this week: Report

San Francisco, Jan 18 : Tech giant Microsoft is joining the ongoing layoff season at tech companies, and is reportedly set to fire nearly 11,000 employees this week amid the global economic slowdown.

Sky News reported that Satya Nadella-run company is “finalising plans to become the latest technology giant to reduce its workforce during a global economic slowdown”.

Microsoft employs more than 220,000 people, including 6,000 in the UK.

The company’s contemplating reducing roughly 5 per cent of its workforce, “which, if accurate, would equate to approximately 11,000 jobs”.

The company will likely announce layoffs on Wednesday (US time), 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 Microsoft wasn’t “immune to the global changes”.

“The next two years are probably going to be the most challenging,” said Nadella.

In recent weeks, a slew of large tech companies have laid off employees, with Amazon slashing 18,000 jobs.

Salesforce, the cloud software provider, would cut more than 7,000 jobs.

More than 1,600 tech employees are being laid off per day on average in 2023 globally including in India, and the sacking episodes have gained speed amid global economic meltdown and recession fears.

The year 2023 has begun 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 this month, signalling worse days ahead.