Microsoft cuts another 3,000 employees as part of its layoff of 18,000
The cuts of approximately 3,000 employees today are believed to be largely support staff in human resources, finance, sales and marketing and IT. They are part of the 18,000 employees Microsoft officials said back in July that they'd be laying off over the course of a year.
In July, Microsoft announced the planned cuts of 18,000, with 12,500 of those cuts coming from employees Microsoft acquired as part of its acquisition of Nokia's handset and services business. Thesecond round of those cuts, totaling about 2,100 employees, hit in September. A final wave of cuts is expected in early 2015, sources said. Given Microsoft has already cut about 18,000 employees, that round should be fairly small.
Microsoft cut 13,000 employees total in the first wave back in July. That wave included some, but not all, of the former Nokia employees, my contacts say. It also included employees in the Operating Systems Group and just about every other group across the company. Microsoft also is planning to reduce its dependency on "contingent" (non-full-time) employees by 20 percent as part of its realignment.
