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"Microsoft is laying off 10,000 people today, including in its gaming divisions such as Xbox and Bethesda."

tmlDan

Member
Lay offs suck no matter the number, but it is a lot for them. I hate when massive companies do this, it should be a last resort and should NOT happen when you can buyout companies/have a net worth that big. This includes Amazon and Apple.

Either way, I hope everyone lands on their feet someplace else - I know it's easy to say that these people are upper middle class in most cases but it can still be tough.
 

Rykan

Member
I don't think you both understand how big this is, 10K is a lot of people to lay off at one time this isn't normal at all.

No way all those positions were redundant
It's 10k people for all of Microsoft. I'm specifically talking about the Bethesda part, which is scaling down because Starfield is in its final stage of development.
 

Saber

Gold Member
I feel bad for them, but its not like this is anything new from Microsoft. Also some lay off from Bethesda, I wonder if it has anything to do with their games being a bugfest.

I guess thats the price you pay for doing acquisitions.
 
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DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Painful for those losing their jobs but the covid boom is over and many business hired a lot of staff to cover the increase on business.

Things are settling now and a reset is happening but this does not look good when you're out here looking to buy a publisher for 70 bill.
 

reksveks

Member
Shit news for the people involved, hopefully they find a good place but everyone is tighten thier belts.

I do wonder whether growing from 140k to 220k fte in two years was the right move but hindsight is 50/50 or whatever the saying is.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
Amazing that 10,000 human beings is 5% of their overall workforce

Layoffs always hurt, but I can understand being tighter with money in this environment
 

Kacho

Member
I don't think you both understand how big this is, 10K is a lot of people to lay off at one time this isn't normal at all.

No way all those positions were redundant
I should have clarified. I was talking about the Bethesda layoffs specifically. No clue about the other divisions.
 
This is the key question, at least Zuck in the previous round of layoffs was generous with the severance.

Yeah I'm interested to see what's up with that. A really good severance package softens the blow and would also be good PR and goodwill toward not just those employees but future employees. A shit severance package or none at all is...well, that won't be a good look.
 
What sucks is they continue to or hit near record profitability are making a purchase which could pay for every employee to have a secured job for life but would rather cut cost so investors can make a fraction of a percentage more than last quarter or never lose any money what do ever any quarter. Our system is truly fucked.
 

Ar¢tos

Member
Sometimes it's for the better (regarding the company, not the employees...) and it's best not to wait too long to do it. Sony waited one gen too long to clean up Japan Studio.
 
This sucks if MS is laying off game division employees then expect more companies to follow suit...10,000 is a ton of employees no matter the percentage
 

NickFire

Member
Wow, that's a crazy amount of people. Not a good look when you just spent 69B on an acquisition.
Too harsh and too soon. Be nice and give the green spin machine a minute to catch its breath. The look will be just fine once the usuals start publishing stories about how virtuous layoffs often help people find themselves, and reducing employees also reduces dangerous gases from the vehicles those employees used to drive to work. The look will be even better when Sony gets blamed for blocking a deal and causing these layoffs. All in good time. All in good time.
 

jm89

Member
We don't know if these people did actual work. I suspect that MS did a lot of diversity hires to improve their ESG rating. I just hope that they didn't fire anyone who was actually valuable.
Huge demand for ms services since COVID pandemic. Teams usage went through the roof, and thats just one product. Probably needed to hire a shit ton people to keep things moving.

Hopefully these folks find something soon.
 
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Banjo64

cumsessed
Amazing that 10,000 human beings is 5% of their overall workforce

Layoffs always hurt, but I can understand being tighter with money in this environment
:messenger_tears_of_joy:Aren’t Microsoft absolutely creaming it in the post pandemic world? Even more so than usual. Those 10k salaries are not even a tiny brown speck of shit in egg’s bloomers.

Just googling ‘microsoft profit’ gave me this as the top result;

  • Microsoft gross profit for the quarter ending September 30, 2022 was $34.670B, a 9.47% increase year-over-year.
  • Microsoft gross profit for the twelve months ending September 30, 2022 was $138.619B, a 14.21% increase year-over-year.
 
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A2una1

Member
It won't affect affect Starfield. Starfield is nearly done, so certain sectors of the games development are being let go. This is normal, it's just sensationalism.

They will scale up again as ES VI production ramps up.
Nearly done...on a Bethesda game...cute. Their games required patching over patching even before it was this plaguious as it is now...
 
lets get this one to 10 pages people, come on we can do it!!!!
giphy.webp
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
:messenger_tears_of_joy:Aren’t Microsoft absolutely creaming it in the post pandemic world? Even more so than usual. Those 10k salaries are not even a tiny brown speck of shit in egg’s bloomers.

Just googling ‘microsoft profit’ gave me this as the top result;

  • Microsoft gross profit for the quarter ending September 30, 2022 was $34.670B, a 9.47% increase year-over-year.
  • Microsoft gross profit for the twelve months ending September 30, 2022 was $138.619B, a 14.21% increase year-over-year.
Problem is profits don't matter if it's not as much as investors want or expect. Simple fact is that their stock is down 30% from their high a year ago. When a company's stock is 30% down, changes will be made and unfortunately one of the first and easiest things that they do is let people go.
 

spookyfish

Member
Bethesda employees? That sucks. MS so recently acquired them. At the same time, they are onboarding more people by acquiring Activision. I do not understand the rationale behind it.

Anyway, 10K people are too many. Best wishes to the people who lost their jobs and their families. I hope they find themselves back on their feet very soon. Being downsized sucks.
This is what usually happens with any acquisition or merger. In other news, I wasn't aware the deal had gone through.
 
Very large number of layoffs. For some reason I thought Microsoft would be bigger worldwide. The NHS has 1.3 million employees for example, I thought a tech giant worldwide with such huge profits would be larger.
 
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