Microsoft hosted Sting’s concert in Davos the night before announcing it was cutting 10k jobs

Microsoft has come under fire for hosting an “intimate” Sting concert for executives in Switzerland the night before announcing it would lay off 10,000 employees.

Fifty executives packed into a venue to listen to Sting, whose legal name is Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, 71, perform at a Davos ski resort on Tuesday night, according to the Wall Street Journal. The executives were in Davos for the World Economic Forum, a gathering where executives and millionaires meet annually.

Employees told the Wall Street Journal that Sting’s concert was a bad image for the company, as the iconic artist’s performances top $500,000, according to the booking agency. AAE music. It is unclear if Sting was paid for the performance.

The next morning, the company announced it was cutting 10,000 jobs, about five percent of its workforce, after suffering “macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities.”

It marks the biggest layoffs at Microsoft since 2014. The company also laid off around 1,000 workers last year. Other tech companies are also facing layoffs, including Amazon and Twitter.

Some workers were told by the end of the day on Wednesday that they had lost their jobs, while others would find out later. The reduction will take place at the end of the third quarter of 2023.

Microsoft executives were in Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum. The new layoffs mark the biggest layoffs at Microsoft since 2014. The company also laid off around 1,000 workers last year.

The invitation-only event in Switzerland had a sustainability theme, which falls under Sting’s environmental work, as he is the founder of the Rainforest Fund, which seeks to protect rainforests and the indigenous people who live in them. He also supports human rights organizations and campaigns.

Sting has been doing a lot of performing lately, including for his My Songs Tours, which runs from September 2021 to December 2023. He also recently appeared on the popular Hulu show Only Murders in the Building, starring Selena Gomez.

On top of that, he sold his song catalog for an estimated $300 million, according to The New York Times.

Also, Davos had about 1,700 private planes flying to the conference to discuss climate change and global warming. It is not clear if Sting or Microsoft were among them.

Microsoft isn’t the only tech company suffering as the world grapples with economic downturns following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier this month, Amazon announced plans to lay off 18,000 employees, and Salesforce estimated it would lay off 10 percent. Goldman Sachs also began letting go of more than 3,000 just before bonus season, according to Well-informed person.

This morning, Jeff Bezos showed up at the Washington Post headquarters unannounced, prompting his staff to worry that they would also face layoffs. In recent years, the Washington Post has suffered from declining advertising revenue, a decline in site traffic, and a dearth of new subscribers. Last month, its publisher, Fred Ryan, announced layoffs in the new year.

Google’s Alphabet also laid off 12,000 employees worldwide.

At just seven big tech companies, job cuts announced in recent months total nearly 70,000: Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, HP and Twitter.

Microsoft isn’t the only tech company suffering as the world grapples with economic downturns following the COVID-19 pandemic.

At just seven big tech companies, job cuts announced in recent months total nearly 70,000: Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, HP and Twitter.

Using the median salaries reported by those companies in regulatory filings, most of which are from 2021, DailyMail.com estimates the combined annual salaries for the eliminated jobs to be about $11.95 billion.

That figure doesn’t take into account the fact that Amazon, which has a large logistics workforce and a median salary of just $29,007, has focused primarily on higher-paying corporate positions in its total announced cuts of 18,000 workers.

It also doesn’t include the thousands of jobs that have been cut at smaller tech companies that aren’t household names.

Technology-driven companies laid off more than 150,000 workers last year, according to a recently published analysis by Layoffs.fyi, which tracks layoffs in real time through information collected from company and press releases.

For laid-off tech workers, though, the news isn’t all bad, as data shows most of them are getting new jobs relatively quickly after losing their jobs.

Sting has made several public appearances lately, including on his tour and on the popular Hulu show Only Murders in the Building (pictured)