Microsoft lays off even more employees as part of its ongoing job cuts

Microsoft has initiated a third wave of layoffs at the company, which reportedly will affect about 3,000 of its employees. The job cuts are part of Microsoft's previously announced plans to lay off a total of about 18,000 team members worldwide by the end of June 2015.

In a statement sent to ZDNet, Microsoft said:

"We've taken another step that will complete almost all the 18,000 reductions announced in July. The reductions happening today are spread across many different business units, and many different countries."

ZDNet added that, according to its sources, the 3,000 new job cuts will mostly affect support staff in Microsoft's human resources, finance, sales and marketing and IT departments. The first wave of layoffs removed about 13,000 team members from Microsoft's work force in July and a second wave in September eliminated 2,100 more jobs.

Microsoft may launch a final round of layoffs sometime in early 2015, but since this third wave has already brought the total number of eliminated employees up to its 18,000 target, the last wave could affect only a small amount of team members. Microsoft should be left with about 107,000 employees when all of the layoffs are completed.

Source: ZDNet

John Callaham