Media outlets reported on Tuesday that Microsoft Corp. plans to lay off thousands of employees, with layoffs likely occurring in the company’s human resources and engineering departments.

The anticipated layoffs would be the most recent in the U.S. technology sector, where businesses including Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. have launched retrenchment exercises in response to decreasing demand and a worsening global economic outlook.

The action by Microsoft could be a sign that employment losses will persist in the technology industry.

Another round of layoffs at Microsoft, from a macro viewpoint, implies the situation is not improving and likely continues to worsen, according to Dan Romanoff, an analyst at Morningstar.

Sky News, a British news source, cited unnamed sources in reporting that Microsoft is planning to lay off around 5% of its staff, or about 11,000 people.

According to Bloomberg, a person familiar with the situation said that the corporation expects to reduce employees in a number of engineering departments on Wednesday, while Insider said that Microsoft could decrease recruitment workers by as much as one-third.

According to Bloomberg, these reductions will be much deeper than previous waves over the past 12 months.

Microsoft has chosen not to address the rumours.

Filings show that as of June 30th, the corporation employed 221,000 full-time employees, including 122,000 in the United States and 99,000 worldwide.

Info source – Reuters