Microsoft axes 2,100 jobs

Microsoft on September 18 said that it axed 2,100 jobs in a second round of cuts which were announced earlier this year. The US technology titan in July unveiled plans to slash a total of 18,000 jobs from its global workforce during the course of a year, the majority from its recently-acquired Nokia handset unit. In the first round, Microsoft cut about 13,000 workers.
"We've taken another step in that process today, with the elimination of about 2,100 jobs," Microsoft said in an email response to an AFP inquiry on September 18.
"The reductions happening today are spread across many different business units, and many different countries." Microsoft said it will continue the trimming process in "the most thoughtful manner," offering severance packages to those whose jobs are eliminated. The total workforce reduction announced in July was the biggest ever by Microsoft and came as chief executive Satya Nadella called for a new focus at the company while integrating the Nokia phone division.
The overall cuts represented about 14 percent of Microsoft's global payroll of some 127,000. The company will take a charge of between $1.1 billion and $1.6 billion for costs related to the layoffs.
Of the total, some 12,500 professional and factory positions from Nokia "will be eliminated through synergies and strategic alignment," Microsoft said. Nadella said in an email to employees in July that the "difficult but necessary" cuts are part of a plan to bring a new direction to the tech titan based in Washington state.
"The first step to building the right organisation for our ambitions is to realign our workforce," he said. Microsoft completed its take-over of Nokia's phone unit in April in a move that strengthened its position in mobile devices. The cost was around $7.5 billion.
Nadella, who became CEO earlier this year, is seeking to reinvigorate a company that had been the world's largest but which has lagged in recent years as Google and Apple have taken leadership of the tech sector.
Nadella said the restructuring "will simplify the way we work to drive greater accountability, become more agile and move faster," and would mean "fewer layers of management, both top down and sideways."
The job cuts are far bigger than the last major reboot for Microsoft in 2009, when it eliminated 5,800 jobs.