Microsoft quietly signs off on more layoffs, culls staff at LinkedIn
The period of tech job market uncertainty is seemingly not over. Less than a month after announcing it was letting go of 3% of its staff, Microsoft has now fired hundreds more.
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The period of tech job market uncertainty is seemingly not over. Less than a month after announcing it was letting go of 3% of its staff, Microsoft has now fired hundreds more.
- Microsoft quietly lists hundreds of laid off employees in the states of California and Washington.
- In mid-May, Microsoft said it would lay off around 6,000 employees, or slightly less than 3% of its workforce.
- The tech industry, including Microsoft, is plowing billions of dollars into AI and needs to trim costs elsewhere.
In mid-May, Microsoft said it would lay off around 6,000 employees, or slightly less than 3% of its workforce. This followed brutal cuts in 2023, when 10,000 employees were let go.
This time, the numbers are less shocking. Still, according to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) lists in California and Washington, hundreds are being fired.
It looks like on May 28th, Microsoft fired 281 staff at LinkedIn, a company that the behemoth paid $26.2 billion for back in 2016. In Washington state, 305 workers will leave their positions at Microsoft by August 1st.
“We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” the Microsoft spokesperson told Bloomberg.
On its last earnings call on April 30th, Microsoft announced it had spent $9.7 billion on dividends and stock buybacks for shareholders and earned $25.8 billion in profit in the first calendar quarter of 2025. This is around $12 million a day.
But the tech industry, including, of course, Microsoft, is plowing billions of dollars into artificial intelligence (AI) and needs to trim costs elsewhere. Google has also laid off hundreds of employees in the past year, as it looks to control costs and prioritize AI.
Industry leaders keep saying that AI creates new jobs, but sometimes, the inconvenient truth slips out. Last week, software company Salesforce said that internal use of AI has allowed it to hire fewer people, especially engineers.
Meta and other social media firms have also been offloading content moderation jobs to AI. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said this year that the company will rely on AI-powered engineers to improve products and fix bugs.