Microsoft is laying off 276 employees, affecting people who work in its customer service, support, and sales sectors. This new round of layoffs happened around half a year after Microsoft fired 10,000 employees back in January.
2023 has been a rough year in the technology sector, and Microsoft has been diminishing its team as a result of that. Like many similar tech companies, Microsoft hired several employees in the last few years, partly due to an increase in demand for digital services during the pandemic. At the beginning of the year, however, the company laid off over 10,000 people to diminish its costs. This included some workers in the gaming divisions, too. Studios such as 343 Industries lost some jobs at the time.
Now, Microsoft has announced a new round of layoffs, as originally reported by Geek Wire. According to the media outlet, the areas that will be affected include customer service, support, and sales. This comes on the heels of the end of the company’s fiscal year, which happened in June, and it’s deemed a common practice in the industry. Notably, the layoffs are quite smaller than the ones that happened at the beginning of 2023, affecting 276 employees and this time it does not seem that anyone in the gaming sector is affected.
While Microsoft may be cutting costs in some sectors, it also made an important step to grow its gaming division today. A judge ruled in favor of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, removing one of the main blocks that the company had to follow its plans: the FTC’s disapproval of the merger. Now, if Microsoft gets favorable results in the United Kingdom, it will be able to finally acquire the company, potentially adding franchises such as Call of Duty and Diablo to its brand.
Microsoft is far from the only company laying off employees this year, though. Several other tech giants such as Google and Meta, for instance, did the same in previous months. Even gaming companies are not immune to this trend. Recently, BioWare laid off an undisclosed number of people. This happened due to the cancelation of the internal development of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Several people involved in the project left the company, while others were moved to projects such as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and the new Mass Effect game.
Source: Geek Wire