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
44 Comments
  • So this time no one cares what we think about the layoffs? Lol
  • If it's not YOU who's getting laid off, I don't see why you should care. Same goes for me and everyone else.
  • Whut...? That almost makes no sense...or sounds jst plain selfish...or both...
    Secondly, he was talking about John's usual way of ending articles with "What Do You Think"s... :P
  • I could be wrong on this one, but i think he was referring to how John C ends every article with "What do you think about [insert topic of article here". I actually clicked the link expecing to see a "What do you think about these newly announced layoffs" or something like that.   John, if you're reading, don't take it as too harsh a criticism. I like your writing otherwise, but it's just a pet peeve of mine. The fact that we can comment in the first place is already tacitly asking the question.
  • I agree.  The "what do you think..." is not necessary.
  • Thirded. It makes you think he already has a template set aside for each article with "what do you think about [article topic]?" at the end.
  • They all end their articles with questions, it's one of their rules to get more people commenting (and thus sticking around on the site longer). It does get ridiculous very often with silly forced questions
  • You should always care when people get laid off. A fired person is a potential criminal, that could put a gun in your face and rob you. Or worst.
  • Yay! more xbox time...
  • My dream is to work on MS
  • And then be laid off by them.
  • They have good severance packages
  • Free Lumia 630's for everyone!
  • Same as you,not anymore.
  • If you're competent, you're already ahead of their current workforce.
  • 18,000 doesn't sound like too much when there's 107,000 left, but if the average wage was $50,000, that's $900 million less salary to pay a year.  That is a big number.  wow.  I just hope a smaller footprint will allow them to move and react faster. 
  • Average Microsoft wage is 100k.
  • Average really doesn't mean much tbh for this sort of thing. They did say that they were laying off mostly support staff. Not that they couldn't be, but I would be surprised if they an average of the people being layed off was 100k or close
  • True true. That's a developer number mostly.
  • and most of the layoffs weren't developer positions
  • So that's how Microsoft is covering the Surface writeoff!
  • It's still more employees than they had before the Nokia acquisition. I don't know if they will be more agile, but I'm sure there was a lot of dead weight in the comapany after tears of increasing head count. Hopefully, they actually looked to see if the employee was an asset. Some of these layoffs are across the board cuts and they get rid of talented people while leaving people who don't add benefit to the company.
  • 13000 + 2100 + 3000 = 18100. 100 guys who bought the new iPhone got axed to I guess :P
  • They should move some of these people to WP, so they can make/update apps fulltime (if they can make apps). Microsoft really need to pick up their game a bit when it comes to apps.
  • Did you read the article? It's mostly hr and marketing people. Not sure they can solve our problems with WP
  • Seems harsher :(
  • If u miss so many apps go buy lagdroid and enjoy the open system and all the viruses u gonne get with it
  • They aren't being fired for liking Android you know..
  • If you know how to prevent you Android getting virus you wouldn't say such thing.
    Google is not a software maker but it makes every Android phone way better than any Windows Phoned.
  • No it doesn't. Google is an advertising company and selling data is its bread and butter. Advertising shit as pie is what it runs on.
  • Good i've sole other 3 lumia today
  • And they are all part of the mobile division,that's mean Microsoft just literally kill Nokia brand to pretend it just enter the Mobile Market,all I see is lies on top lies.
    I'm going to Android next year.
  • YES! As a stock holder, I'm very exicted about this. And as a user, I'm thrilled. MSFT needs to be lean and mean, not huge and slow.
  • i assume all these ppl where dead wieght . im guessing In the past they hired ppL Like crazy
  • Sad that a company that grossed $23 billion last quarter and pays there CEO $84 million this year are laying people off. Wow!!!!
  • You expect them to operate like the government and piss away money on useless people who aren't needed?
  • Who say they are useless? The top executives need to take a pay cut to keep the staff who are less fortunate than they are employed.
  • Instead of laying of total 18000 employees.. Maybe you should've cut everyone's pay from top to bottom of hierarchy and lay off half the people, efficiency would've been more than just laying off 18000 jobs.
  • Did they fire *lol? Or is the magician still around?
  • but if those executives don't get their billion dollar bonuses, what incentive will they have to keep losing the company all that money?
  • As soon as I looked at the picture I thought something was wrong with my screen.... Stupid crease in the paper....lol
  • Yea, welcome to the real world.....This is for those people who have been at a comfortable job for the last 10-15 years.... I wish the laid off employees the best of luck
  • I'm somewhat disappointed the first comment wasn't "seems faster".
  • 18,000 plus layoffs? I guess releasing Win 8 could do this to them...