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[StreetsofBeige]

No more damage controlling than you're over emphasizing of it.

Microsoft hired more than 50k workers over the pandemic, and hired more than 40k people in 2022 alone. Where were you applauding that when it was announced? Where were you when it was announced that Amazon was laying off 18k people? What about Meta and Google laying off over 10k apiece?

But here you are front and center making sure nobody states the obvious.

Exactly.

I said something similar earlier today. Nobody ever brings up the hiring sprees. They only complain when a company announces firings. If everyone went by layoff articles, every big company would have zero employees by now as people assume a layoff of lets say 5000 people means forever the company is locked in stone a negative 5000 people count. But in order to get there in the first place, the company hired at least 5000 people. But you'll never hear about that.

Here's MS employee count since 2010. From 93,000 to 220,000. It's more than doubled in 12 years. That's about 7.5% employee growth per year for 12 years. Not surprisingly, it gyrates up or down and not a smooth 7.5%, but over time that's what it is since then.

Microsoft: Number of Employees 2010-2023 | MSFT

Interactive chart of Microsoft (MSFT) annual worldwide employee count from 2010 to 2023. <ul style='margin-top:10px;'> <li>Microsoft total number of employees in 2023 was <strong>221,000</strong>, a <strong>0% decline</strong> from 2022.</li> <li>Microsoft total number of...

www.macrotrends.net

Even cooler, here's an employee count chart for big tech companies that only goes up to about 2015, but close enough to give an idea of employees (theres a few more cool charts in the link)

 

[JTCx]

Usual flunkies out here defending lay offs.

You love to see it.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Management is the ones who get final say. A dev can state that something is unfinished, broken, or not ready - none of that matters if the management demands they show the product as it is. A dev can also say that something is working well, but if Management wants to move in a new direction and scrap what was done, management again has the final say.

True.

And for gaming, employees should less critical.

Because if giant corporations really wanted to, they could fire and shut down the studio 4 years ago and then nobody in that department has a job. But what probably happens in any gaming company or studio is that gutting and closing it down is a last ditch effort. In the meantime, there's been so much work and money sunk into the 5 year project (Halo Infinite is 6 years since Halo 5 + GAAS updates now too), it's tough for management to shut it all down. If my company says a new line of soap sucks it doesn't move the needle to cancel the entire thing because there's 1000 other products to sell. My company probably cancels or delays more products in one year than all these big gaming studios combined. But we can do that since they really dont move the needle. I've seen a rehashed product brought up for discussion to try again from 5 years ago. It gets put on the back burner every year. Nobody cares if it ever launches.

But in gaming, it seems the entire company has to just force themselves to launch it at some point and pray it works out.

 

[bentanchorbolt]

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.

You must understand that profits were super high but not high enough, and therefore in order for shareholders to maximize their return is to right size the company. Come on dude.

 

[IFireflyl]

the gaming division far smaller right?.

meaning the gaming layoffs are more significant.

How many of the 211,000 employees located in the gaming division? How many of the 10,000 layoffs were in the gaming division? What roles were eliminated and why? There are so many variables that this kind of speculation is absolutely pointless. You don't know how many people were laid off in the gaming division versus other divisions, nor do you know the makeup of the other divisions to know how much larger or smaller they were in comparison to the gaming division. All we know is that there are layoffs. Signaling that it's doom-and-gloom for Microsoft and stating that this is going to cause them to lose this console generation is retarded. There is nowhere near enough data to make that claim.

 

[AJUMP23]

5% of the work force is not that big. 10000 is a big number but ms is a huge company. More layoff will come through the year. in 08 I was at a company and was laid off in the third round. I had just bought a house and made one payment. I had a job a few weeks later but it was stressful.

I probably have some tech jobs I can get for people that need them. PM me if interested. Must have bachelors.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

How many of the 211,000 employees located? How many of the 10,000 layoffs were in the gaming division? What roles were eliminated and why? There are so many variables that this kind of speculation is absolutely pointless. You don't know how many people were laid off in the gaming division versus other divisions, nor do you know the makeup of the other divisions to know how much larger or smaller they were in comparison to the gaming division. All we know is that there are layoffs. Signaling that it's doom-and-gloom for Microsoft and stating that this is going to cause them to lose this console generation is retarded. There is nowhere near enough data to make that claim.

statistically speaking.

 

[tmlDan]

You must understand that profits were super high but not high enough, and therefore in order for shareholders to maximize their return is to right size the company. Come on dude.

I must understand? are you kidding me? wtf does "right size" the company mean?

Companies as big as MS know how to forecast for the future, if they over hire it is not the employees fault it is the companies leaders...so excuse me if i say it again, fuck MS, fuck Amazon, fuck Hootsuite, fuck salesforce, fuck Meta for using people rather than properly forecasting a downward trend in tech when it was obvious it would happen.

I work in tech as well and they haven't laid anyone off, why? because they didn't hire like crazy because of a pandemic growth spurt.

 

[IFireflyl]

statistically speaking.

This post makes no sense.

 

[IFireflyl]

I must understand? are you kidding me? wtf does "right size" the company mean?

Companies as big as MS know how to forecast for the future, if they over hire it is not the employees fault it is the companies leaders...so excuse me if i say it again, fuck MS, fuck Amazon, fuck Hootsuite, fuck salesforce, fuck Meta for using people rather than properly forecasting a downward trend in tech when it was obvious it would happen.

I work in tech as well and they haven't laid anyone off, why? because they didn't hire like crazy because of a pandemic growth spurt.

I'm fairly certain he was being sarcastic.

 

[R3claimer117]

Didn’t Amazon fire 18,000 people and goggle and fb 10,000 each why’s this being made a solely Microsoft scum corporation? Not that it’s right but Microsoft through acquisitions has a lot of redundant positions the fact that they continue to have people at bathesda and Xbox that have basically the same Jobs still is proof that they’re trying to keep the culture of some of these companies. But I hope most of these people find jobs ASAP I have no doubt they have great severance packages to boost them till their next opportunity. Also the big workforce coming from abk if that closes also brings huge management redundancies.

 

[tmlDan]

I'm fairly certain he was being sarcastic.

i got that feeling lol

 

[R3claimer117]

How many of the 211,000 employees located? How many of the 10,000 layoffs were in the gaming division? What roles were eliminated and why? There are so many variables that this kind of speculation is absolutely pointless. You don't know how many people were laid off in the gaming division versus other divisions, nor do you know the makeup of the other divisions to know how much larger or smaller they were in comparison to the gaming division. All we know is that there are layoffs. Signaling that it's doom-and-gloom for Microsoft and stating that this is going to cause them to lose this console generation is retarded. There is nowhere near enough data to make that claim.

Lol yeah some of these takes are crazy people saying doom and gloom for the Xbox division while they’re simultaneously making the biggest gaming acquisition ever.

 

[bentanchorbolt]

I must understand? are you kidding me? wtf does "right size" the company mean?

Companies as big as MS know how to forecast for the future, if they over hire it is not the employees fault it is the companies leaders...so excuse me if i say it again, fuck MS, fuck Amazon, fuck Hootsuite, fuck salesforce, fuck Meta for using people rather than properly forecasting a downward trend in tech when it was obvious it would happen.

I work in tech as well and they haven't laid anyone off, why? because they didn't hire like crazy because of a pandemic growth spurt.

Shareholders must make max profits. Can’t do that with ten thousand extra mouthes to feed.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

At the end of the day, you keep or lose a job pending if the company sees if you're worth keeping. It's that simple. And unless the company is super chill and charitable, you can always be on the firing line.

Don't take it for granted like "Well, the company makes tons of profit so I'm safe"

You hear about expert Google coders making $200,000 salaries. Sounds crazy. That's more than Directors make at my company, but hey Google thinks it's worth it to spend that money. On the other hand, they might fire someone who makes $70,000 because maybe that person sucks.

Also, with every big layoff there's almost always new people hired. Not saying 100% will be rehired, but layoffs will always skew to overpaid people, poor performers, and roles not needed anymore. For roles not needed, those will be a tough hill to rehire. Simply not needed. But the bad or overpaid employees will be refilled with other employees.

A few years after I started at my company (been there over 10 years), a bunch of the old geezers got cut (all were part of the 25 or 30 year club). New cheaper blood needed. 5 people got cut from similar departments linked to each other. Every job got refilled with younger people. And going by what I saw the newer people did a better job over time. The old crew were stodgy, old school, and could barely use Excel. The 30 year guy acted like he fucking owned the place and he wasnt even a Director or higher. But they got big severance pay offs.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

This post makes no sense.

If MS fires 2 people .

1 from the gaming division (comprise by 10 members)

and

1 from the windows division (comprised by 100)

which one is more significant/impactful?

 

[In Cold Blood]

That's some ass-backwards shit right there. How is firing the best guy, the one with the most tenure "sharing the pain"? He is the only one in pain!

The fuckery didn't end there. We had to then take on his customers and budget between us and when we all complained about being over worked they said they would look into what they could do to help us. We thought they might bring in a contractor to help service the customers, however their answer was to send us all to a time management course.

 

[UltimaKilo]

I must understand? are you kidding me? wtf does "right size" the company mean?

Companies as big as MS know how to forecast for the future, if they over hire it is not the employees fault it is the companies leaders...so excuse me if i say it again, fuck MS, fuck Amazon, fuck Hootsuite, fuck salesforce, fuck Meta for using people rather than properly forecasting a downward trend in tech when it was obvious it would happen.

I work in tech as well and they haven't laid anyone off, why? because they didn't hire like crazy because of a pandemic growth spurt.

There's a global recession looming and the economy is teetering with the fed poised for more rate hikes, even if it's a fraction of a point. MS is getting ahead, like a lot of other companies are currently doing, and cutting back.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Sony sacked 90 Playstation marketing people last year citing global turmoil.
I can almost guarantee MS Isn't sacking coders, or devs from Bethesda. It would be some people in middle management, PR, marketing and the like.
Having worked for a massive US multinational company they will just make a edict that they need to reduce their workforce by 10% worldwide and every division has to work out what employees they identify as their 10%.
Our team was smashing budgets. My country was one of the only ones who were making more profit than budgeted for, we were understaffed and prior to this were looking to add employees, however we had to "share the pain" and they picked the oldest person to sack, who was our biggest salesman that year.

We were coming back from lunch and we saw him walking down the stairs with a box containing all his personal effects and sticking out the top was the photos he had on his desk of his wife and dog.

Very true.

Unless MS is some reason overloaded with coders (or it's time to axe some 343 people because Halo is meh), most companies firing people will focus on:

- If the highest costing employees are worth keeping (that sales guy you mentioned likely is compensated a shit load and management thinks other people can cover)
- Support functions (not revenue generating) like analysts, paper pushers and assistants
- Bad performers, bad attitude, already on the firing line or got warnings already
- Old people hitting pension time
- Keeping employees who are both budget friendly and can handle multiple stuff

Another thing too about layoffs is that a lot of companies do it during turmoil times copying each other. It's the best time to do it because they can always just claim there's an economic crisis going on and they got to do it like everyone else.

If the economy is on fire and companies are hitting record stock prices and profits, it looks bad to be the only company doing layoffs.

 

[Havoc2049]

Oh wow, what has led to the insane growth from 2019-2022? That's quite the profits jump each year.

Cloud computing has seen massive growth. All the local servers where I work at just got shut down and everything is in the cloud now.

 

[Stooky]

This always happens after a large aquasition, its why I hate this microsoft merger shit. Same thing will happen if Activision is acquired. They will look at number and some studios aren't going to make the cut.

 

[BadBurger]

Easy to always blame management. But management isn't the ones doing the nuts and bolts.

I dont see how management can be blamed for a game that had a 6 year gap from Halo 5, didn't make the Slipspace engine, and surely didn't do the artwork and textures for the Craig video year ago.

Someone can say it's their fault for showing Craig and releasing the game as it is. But it gets to a point you got to ship a game out unless a company wants to do a Duke Nukem and make it a 10 year project.

In the tech world, even the IT world, management - even middle management - have vast authority on what people get to work on, and how. And since human beings are resources like any other, they also dictate how much every worker has to contribute.

I could see coming from say manufacturing or something and not understanding this, but everyone in tech knows that when tech endeavors fail the vast majority of the blame typically falls on the failings of management. New leadership comes in and things can change radically almost overnight. Meanwhile, they could fire entire teams of engineers and hire new ones and nothing would change. A basic truth of the industry.

 

[Stooky]

At the end of the day, you keep or lose a job pending if the company sees if you're worth keeping. It's that simple. And unless the company is super chill and charitable, you can always be on the firing line.

Don't take it for granted like "Well, the company makes tons of profit so I'm safe"

You hear about expert Google coders making $200,000 salaries. Sounds crazy. That's more than Directors make at my company, but hey Google thinks it's worth it to spend that money. On the other hand, they might fire someone who makes $70,000 because maybe that person sucks.

Also, with every big layoff there's almost always new people hired. Not saying 100% will be rehired, but layoffs will always skew to overpaid people, poor performers, and roles not needed anymore. For roles not needed, those will be a tough hill to rehire. Simply not needed. But the bad or overpaid employees will be refilled with other employees.

A few years after I started at my company (been there over 10 years), a bunch of the old geezers got cut (all were part of the 25 or 30 year club). New cheaper blood needed. 5 people got cut from similar departments linked to each other. Every job got refilled with younger people. And going by what I saw the newer people did a better job over time. The old crew were stodgy, old school, and could barely use Excel. The 30 year guy acted like he fucking owned the place and he wasnt even a Director or higher. But they got big severance pay offs.

It comes down to money period. If they can hire some one or some people (outsourcing) to do your job cheaper than your cost. Bye Bye. 25-30 year old is not an old geezer those are usually ones that know what the fuck they doing and are training the younger guys. if they can get 2 younger guys for the price of an "old geezer" some companies don't value that and let the old geezer go. In most cases it doesn't work out. If the old geezer is good they'll never have a problem finding work

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

I wonder how many at Bethesda are getting let go, it's not that large.

 

[Topher]

Imagine being an employee at Microsoft right now. Gotta be stressful not knowing if you'll have a job or not. Sucks.

 

[Stooky]

Easy to always blame management. But management isn't the ones doing the nuts and bolts.

I dont see how management can be blamed for a game that had a 6 year gap from Halo 5, didn't make the Slipspace engine, and surely didn't do the artwork and textures for the Craig video year ago.

Someone can say it's their fault for showing Craig and releasing the game as it is. But it gets to a point you got to ship a game out unless a company wants to do a Duke Nukem and make it a 10 year project.

Management controls the project they make the decisions. Everybody bellow that is taking orders. So yeah its managements fault. They are rarely the ones that pay for their mistakes.

 

[IFireflyl]

If MS fires 2 people .

1 from the gaming division (comprise by 10 members)

and

1 from the windows division (comprised by 100)

which one is more significant/impactful?

Again, this is pointless. Don't respond to me if you're just going to ignore what I say.

How many of the 211,000 employees located in the gaming division? How many of the 10,000 layoffs were in the gaming division? What roles were eliminated and why? There are so many variables that this kind of speculation is absolutely pointless. You don't know how many people were laid off in the gaming division versus other divisions, nor do you know the makeup of the other divisions to know how much larger or smaller they were in comparison to the gaming division. All we know is that there are layoffs. Signaling that it's doom-and-gloom for Microsoft and stating that this is going to cause them to lose this console generation is retarded. There is nowhere near enough data to make that claim.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Again, this is pointless. Don't respond to me if you're just going to ignore what I say.

your answer is meaningless to the comment i made in the first place.(dont try to spin it).

any layoff to the gaming division is more significant due to the lower head count.

you ranted with an answer which it hasn't anything to do with what i was stating.

 

[IFireflyl]

your answer is meaningless to the comment i made in the first place.(dont try to spin it).

any layoff to the gaming division is more significant due to the lower head count.

you ranted with an answer which it hasn't anything to do with what i was stating.

Let's dumb this down since you're being daft:

If there are 10,000 people in Microsoft's gaming division, and only one person is laid off, that would be 0.01% of the gaming division being hit with layoffs. Since the total layoffs for Microsoft is around 4%, this means that the gaming division's 0.01% of layoffs isn't significant at all.

Because nobody knows the raw numbers, it is pointless to to make claims like, "This means Microsoft lost this console generation."

Additionally, you're the one that initially responded to me when I wasn't talking to you. You really need to stop acting like a dumbass and actually read the shit you respond to. I'm a hairsbreadth away from blocking you because you waste everyone's time with your eight brain cells.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It comes down to money period. If they can hire some one or some people (outsourcing) to do your job cheaper than your cost. Bye Bye. 25-30 year old is not an old geezer those are usually ones that know what the fuck they doing and are training the younger guys. if they can get 2 younger guys for the price of an "old geezer" some companies don't value that and let the old geezer go. In most cases it doesn't work out. If the old geezer is good they'll never have a problem finding work

When I say 25-30 year. I meant they've been at the company for 25-30 years. Hence the 25 year club I mentioned. From what I've seen, often times these 50+ year olds are stodgy and usually bad with tech. Most of them have never worked at another company. They started out their careers doing pen and paperwork and faxes. So over time lots of them try to get by having their assistants do things for them and try to do as little technical work as possible. At some point management gets rid of them because they are dinosaurs.

This comes from non-tech companies I work at.

As you said it comes down to money. But value for the money. The company could fire me and literally hire 3 finance people out of college. That's 3 times the brain cells. But it's not worth the hassle to increase headcount and train them over time. Then again it'll get to a point I might be fired soon as the crusty geezer.

 

[geary]

I know people will go crazy with wild theories, but they employed an insane amount of people over the last 4 years during the pandemic etc.

& Obviously this will impact all divisions and not just Xbox related ones.

"2019: ~144,000 Microsoft employees
2020: ~163,000 Microsoft employees
2021: ~181,000 Microsoft employees
2022: ~221,000 Microsoft employees"

Bad MS who hired 40k ppl in the last year. I didnt saw a thread praising the company then.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

In the tech world, even the IT world, management - even middle management - have vast authority on what people get to work on, and how. And since human beings are resources like any other, they also dictate how much every worker has to contribute.

I could see coming from say manufacturing or something and not understanding this, but everyone in tech knows that when tech endeavors fail the vast majority of the blame typically falls on the failings of management. New leadership comes in and things can change radically almost overnight. Meanwhile, they could fire entire teams of engineers and hire new ones and nothing would change. A basic truth of the industry.

But that would assume that all the subordinates are awesome at their jobs and the reason why so many games are crap or buggy is because managers screwed it up.

I dont come from tech industry, so if thats how it is as you say, maybe it's like that in tech.

 

[Airbus Jr]

Because of these layofff we announced that TES VI will be delayed until 2030

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Because of these layofff we announced that TES VI will be delayed until 2030

Delayed? That's probably their plan the whole time!

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Because nobody knows the raw numbers, it is pointless to to make claims like, "This means Microsoft lost this console generation."

were the fuck did i said this statement?!.

the only daft here is you buddy. why so defensive anyway?

MS will be fine.

but is clear 343i was significantly impacted by these layoffs. ...you know....part of the gaming division

 

[Stooky]

When I say 25-30 year. I meant they've been at the company for 25-30 years. Hence the 25 year club I mentioned. From what I've seen, often times these 50+ year olds are stodgy and usually bad with tech. Most of them have never worked at another company. They started out their careers doing pen and paperwork and faxes. So over time lots of them try to get by having their assistants do things for them and try to do as little technical work as possible. At some point management gets rid of them because they are dinosaurs.

This comes from non-tech companies I work at.

As you said it comes down to money. But value for the money. The company could fire me and literally hire 3 finance people out of college. That's 3 times the brain cells. But it's not worth the hassle to increase headcount and train them over time. Then again it'll get to a point I might be fired soon as the crusty geezer.

ohhh haha my bad 25-30 years i read that wrong. I see your point, yep true about those institutionalized workers. Ive seen it many ways , young hot shot thinks they know everything..fired...Young worker that just can't do the work.... fired. young worker that's not that good.....yet...... but gets it, keep them they'll eventually be good (its takes a geezer that's been around to see these diamonds). Good at your job, fast learner, easy to work with........ employed forever no matter the age.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

ohhh haha my bad 25-30 years i read that wrong. I see your point, yep true about those institutionalized workers. Ive seen it many ways , young hot shot thinks they know everything..fired...Young worker that just can't do the work fired. young worke that's not that good.....yet...... but gets it, keep them they'll eventually be good (its takes a geezer that's been around to see these diamonds). Good at your job, fast learner, easy to work with........ employed forever no matter the age.

Youngsters coming in. Some good, some arrogant asses. But that's a whole other topic. lol

And ya I've seen some young employees fired. Which usually came from bad attitude than bad job skills. Their tech skills are usually good and you can tell they could get it. But the attitudes can be wildly unpredictable One even bawled her eyes out in an office after getting chewed out by her director. It was so bad that when she got fired, the VP told the director to move over as he wanted to handle it instead. He gave her a personal one on one chat when she got fired why she was lousy. It was no here's a termination letter, hand in your laptop and leave. It was like a life coaching moment for 20 minutes. I have never seen that before in my life.

 

[twilo99]

Welcome to big companies. This is pretty normal. Why is this at four pages?

People don’t seem to understand how corporations operate.

 

[coffinbirth]

Oh, that's why we've seen all those cool gameplay videos.

We saw them last June.

That doesn't really fit your weird little narrative though, huh?

 

[ahtlas7]

Wonder if those unions are having any effect.

How many of the 10k were union members?

 

[Valkyria]

Wow I didn’t know Gaf was so full I f boot lickers. I’m guessing most of them are young, but time will teach what corporations think of the average Joe, especially the US ones.

 

[DenchDeckard]

were the fuck did i said this statement?!.

the only daft here is you buddy. why so defensive anyway?

MS will be fine.

but is clear 343i was significantly impacted by these layoffs. ...you know....part of the gaming division

This is rough for all of them, but literally what nearly every one on various sides has asked for for years now.

343i have been given so many chances and it's just not worked. They need to just make sure they are letting the right people go.

Just give good ol chief a break.

 

[Banjo64]

Do the unions support these lay offs?

 

[FF:Enhanced_Reality]

Probably just making room for ABK.

 

[Fredrik]

Most major banks are forecasting a minor/moderate recession within the next 12 months so large corporations are preparing for a downturn in revenue and profits. This is exacerbated by the fact that many of these same corporations increased their hiring during COVID years because online sales/services industry skyrocketed.

Thank you! I have some US tech stocks that’s already down a ton. Sounds like it’s time to step out for a bit, invest in something else instead.

 

[reksveks]

Don't know if it is yet worth a new thread but also we should be getting some stories about Riot laying off some people. Have been seen as very stable.

Unsure the scope and scale.

 

[BadBurger]

But that would assume that all the subordinates are awesome at their jobs and the reason why so many games are crap or buggy is because managers screwed it up.

I dont come from tech industry, so if thats how it is as you say, maybe it's like that in tech.

There's many reasons, some with the inertia of decades, but as someone with a CS degree who bounced between Tech and IT from my second year in college:

1. Tech is straight forward. The metals are metals. There's only so much creativity a person / engineer can have when it comes to building solutions with rigid programming languages, DBMS's, electronics and associated tech, etc. So if one can do the job, they can do the job, and will likely do it in a very similar fashion to anyone else with the same education and training

2. Because of this fact, how leadership in tech approaches how their underlings can work makes all the difference. A new VP of <insert engineering group here> comes in and declares that the group is no longer working on their projects in these manners, but rather in these new ways. They can no longer use the tools they're used to. They can't even use the same practice of development such as scrum, but rather have to start using some new trendy dev process that no one likes. Management in tech and IT can change everything in a second, while the engineers doing the work are all trained in the same metals.

Get it? It's an entirely different world from other industries and one many older people find impossible to enter because of just how quickly everything can change at the whims of some executive who probably won't even be at the company for more than a year or two.

 

[Three]

Well what hardware does MS make? Azure server racks, Surface devices, HoloLens, Xbox.

Which one is on record as being subsidized by $100 - $200 dollars only a few months ago? Which one is part of a division that has been mentioned as never being profitable on the hardware, from court documents no less?

If I were to guess, they might actually scale back on Series S production and push more Series X units, do a soft price increase with Series X, but probably have slightly lower overall Xbox shipments because they can't make as many Xs' as they can S units.

This would suggest that they might push more units like Series X without a price increase but maybe I don't understand what is meant by a $1.2B charge. Sounds more like they are paying some company for an agreement or something. Maybe they canned keystone?

How many of the 10k were union members?

Don't know really. I don't even know what the split of those layoffs are by department.

 

[Cheezewizz]

Usual flunkies out here defending lay offs.

You love to see it.

Nobody's defending anything fuckwit. But understanding context and the overall reasoning behind such things apparently requires a marble count higher than you're capable of.

Just stick to the kiddie pool and you'll be fine.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Yep. HR departments are extremely overweight as well.

This kind of excess hiring is normal when corporations start making so much money.

2019: ~144,000 Microsoft employees
2020: ~163,000 Microsoft employees
2021: ~181,000 Microsoft employees
2022: ~221,000 Microsoft employees

It makes no sense. Not sure how much of that is from acquisitions, etc. but they should go back to pre 2019 numbers

They had been hiring ~20k per year so that should be closer to Microsoft's "organic" and sustainable growth. All of a sudden in 2021 they hired 40k which probably isn't optimal.
This year they're probably doing a hiring freeze or slow down, which is why they're "only" firing 11k.