Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it was laying off 10,000 workers, following Amazon, Meta (Facebook), and other tech companies who added thousands of jobs during the pandemic.
While the number seems large, it’s a fraction of the jobs Microsoft added during the pandemic. The company’s workforce grew from 163,000 workers in June of 2020 to 221,000 in June of 2022.
The company made the announcement as part of a regulatory filing. It said that it was making changes to its hardware offerings and would be consolidating its leased office spaces.
“No one can defy gravity and gravity here is inflation-adjusted economic growth,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told world business leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
During the pandemic, many tech companies that had struggled for years to find enough staff suddenly found people to hire. Many analysts believe that many of these recent tech company layoffs are due to an overexuberance in hiring and, in Amazon's case, a slight slacking in the number of online orders, combined with a weakening global economy.
Layoffs are expected to begin immediately.
Photo by Salvatore De Lellis: https://www.pexels.com/photo/glass-panels-exterior-of-the-microsoft-building-9683980/
Bob Peryea
National Correspondent
The Kentucky Daily