Microsoft wants to cut 10,000 jobs

Microsoft headquarters in Redmond

Photo: STEPHEN BRASHEAR/ AFP

The mail has it all: "We live in times of fundamental change," writes Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a message to his staff, in which he laments the difficult market conditions - before he gets to the point in the third paragraph: "We are taking today changes that will lead to the loss of 10,000 jobs (...)«.

The first employees of the software group are therefore already being informed that they will lose their jobs.

"We know this is a difficult time for everyone involved," Nadella said.

The group justifies the savings with the changed demand.

Clients wanted to "optimize their digital spend to do more with less" and "use caution as some parts of the world are in recession and other parts are anticipating one," Nadella said.

Microsoft must react with an adjustment of the costs.

Less than five percent of the group's global workforce will be affected by the job cuts.

In key areas, however, they want to continue hiring new staff.

The job cuts and other measures incurred expenses of $ 1.2 billion in the second fiscal quarter, it said.

Microsoft shares started Wednesday trading with modest gains.

Amazon, Meta, Twitter, Snapchat: a round of terminations

The company, co-founded by Bill Gates, which employs more than 220,000 people worldwide, had already laid off a number of employees in two rounds last year.

Microsoft is not alone in this approach: The online giant Amazon announced the elimination of more than 18,000 jobs at the beginning of January, and the Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta in November the layoff of 11,000 employees.

The online platform Snapchat and the IT company Salesforce also want to save costs with job cuts.

And at the short message service Twitter, the new owner Elon Musk has laid off around half of the 7,500 employees.

Due to the poor economic situation, the technology groups have come under increasing pressure to cut costs, partly because of the loss of advertising income.

"A lot of these companies spent money like rock stars did in the 1980s," said analyst Dan Ives.

They now need to get their spending under control in a worsening economic environment.

mic/dpa/AFP