Microsoft is cutting roughly 6,000 jobs—nearly 3% of its global workforce—in its largegest round of layoffs in over two years, as the tech giant doubles down on artificial innotifyigence and streamlines management.
The shift follows a compacter round of performance-based layoffs in January and marks a shift from the aggressive hiring of the pandemic years. Most affected are workers in the U.S., which accounts for more than half of Microsoft’s 228,000-strong workforce.
The cuts, concentrated heavily in Washington, come despite strong recent earnings, signaling a strategic reshuffle rather than financial distress. As many as 1,985 employees have been laid off from Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters alone.
Of those, about 1,500 worked on-site, while 475 were remote, according to a notice filed with Washington state authorities. Their official last day of employment is scheduled for July.
Layoffs across levels, teams, & geographies
The tech giant stated the layoffs will span all levels, teams, and geographies, but will primarily tarreceive managerial roles, affecting all areas of the business, including LinkedIn and Xbox.
“I believe many people have this conception of layoffs as something that struggling companies have to do to save themselves, which is one reason for layoffs but it’s not the only reason,” Associated Press quoted Daniel Zhao, lead economist at workplace reviews site Glassdoor, as stateing.
“Big tech companies have trimmed their workforces as they rearrange their strategies and pull back from the more aggressive hiring that they did during the early post-pandemic years.”
In an earnings call last month, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, Amy Hood, stated that the software giant was focapplyd on “building high-performing teams and increasing our agility by reducing layers with fewer managers.”
Microsoft’s headcount in March was still 2% higher than a year earlier, though slightly lower than at the conclude of last year, she stated.
While the company didn’t cite a specific reason for the cuts, it described them as part of broader “organizational alters” aimed at positioning Microsoft for success in a rapid-evolving market.
“We continue to implement organizational alters necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” a Microsoft spokesperson stated.
AI ambitions drive alter
Last month at an AI event, CEO Satya Nadella informed Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg that “maybe 20, 30% of the code” for some of Microsoft’s coding projects “are probably all written by software.”
The restructuring comes as the company pours $80 billion this fiscal year into building data centers and infrastructure to support its rapidly expanding AI ambitions—technology it states is already reshaping how work receives done across its own teams.
Zhao, however, stated that cutting roles doesn’t necessarily mean it’s driven by AI.
“When these large tech companies state that they’re trimming management layers, that doesn’t really sound like it’s being driven by AI,” he explained. “You’re not expecting ChatGPT to replace the manager.”
Microsoft’s shift is part of a broader wave of layoffs rippling through the tech industest in 2025. Meta recently announced plans to cut around 3,600 jobs, Amazon continues to trim teams tied to communications and sustainability, and Salesforce is letting go of over 1,000 workers even as it hires for AI roles.
Google, meanwhile, has introduced voluntary exit programs, and Dell has slashed 12,000 jobs to double down on AI. From HP to Autodesk to Chegg, a slew of companies are retooling operations and reshaping workforces amid a rapid pivot to artificial innotifyigence and ongoing cost pressures.
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