Microsoft lays off nearly 1,000 staff worldwide as share price plunges 30% in a year

Microsoft has laid off nearly 1,000 employees worldwide for fear of a recession, making it just the latest major tech company to do so.

The layoffs represent less than half of 1 percent of the company’s 221,000 employees worldwide, ABC news reports.

But the job cuts affect everything from Microsoft’s Xbox console gaming division to Microsoft’s cutting-edge Strategic Missions and Technology organization, according to Business Insider.

Some former employees have now taken to Twitter to share their unfortunate news, with even KC Lemson, a longtime employee and product manager in the Chief Technology Officer’s office, saying she was affected.

The news comes as the tech company’s shares have fallen nearly 30 percent in the past year amid continued inflation and reduced demand for products as people return to their offices.

In a statement, Microsoft executives said: “Like all companies, we regularly evaluate our business priorities and make structural adjustments accordingly.

“We will continue to invest in our business in the coming year and hire people in key growth areas.”

With the announcement, Microsoft is just the latest company to cut its workforce amid rampant inflation.

Microsoft executives announced earlier in July that it was laying off less than 1 percent of its staff and significantly slowing hiring as revenues fell short of investor expectations.

The company posted just $51.9 billion in revenue in the second quarter of the year, but was expected to bring in $52.4 billion.

It had previously recorded blockbuster growth during the COVID pandemic, as consumers and businesses turned to its products as they transitioned to a work-from-home model.

In fact, ABC News reports that Microsoft’s stock prices jumped 107 percent from March 2020 to December 2021.

But an economic slowdown and a shift to pre-pandemic consumer habits have hurt major tech companies like Microsoft, which is expected to release its latest quarterly earnings next Tuesday.

The layoffs come just two weeks after Amazon officials announced they were ceasing their retail business functions to keep costs in check.

The company had instructed recruiters to close all open positions for those positions and recommended that recruiting activities, such as phone calls to screen new candidates, be stopped, according to a report from the company. New York Times.

However, company spokesman Brad Glasser said in a statement that there are a significant number of open positions in the company’s other sectors.

“We have many different companies in different stages of evolution and we expect that we will continue to adjust our recruitment strategies in each of these companies at different times,” Glasser said.

Under Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, ​​who took over the position a little over a year ago, the company has cut spending to keep costs down during its weakest growth in more than two decades.

According to The New York Times, Jassy recently told investors that the company had focused on controlling costs and efficiencies in its warehouse and logistics operations.

Amazon saw a surge in demand during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, but like other businesses that thrived during the crisis, it saw sales decline as shopping patterns returned to pre-pandemic levels.

During the pandemic, Amazon pushed its workforce to more than 1.2 million people worldwide, a 50 percent increase from 2019.

But in recent months, Amazon has closed or canceled launches of new facilities, and it is delaying the opening of some new buildings after the pandemic-driven expansion left too much warehouse space.

Meanwhile, reports earlier this month suggested that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also plans to lay off up to 12,000 underperforming employees after initiating a review process asking managers to label employees who “need support.”

Zuckerberg previously said in an employee Q&A that the company would extend the hiring freeze in place since May, and said steps would be taken to cut costs.

But a Facebook spokesperson denied that 12,000 employees were laid off, describing: the Insider report that brought them up as ‘inaccurate’.

In response, they pointed to Zuckerberg’s earlier comments on an earnings call two months ago in which he said, “A lot of teams are going to shrink so we can shift energy to other areas.”