Microsoft’s Next Big Layoff Wave: Over 1,000 Jobs on the Line — Sales Teams Targeted!
Microsoft is preparing for its third major round of layoffs this year, with more than 1,000 employees expected to be affected, according to sources familiar with the matter. The upcoming job cuts are anticipated to be announced in early July, coinciding with the start of the company’s new fiscal year.
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Unlike previous layoffs in May that impacted over 6,000 employees—primarily in engineering and development—the upcoming reduction will largely affect Microsoft’s sales and marketing division, which employs approximately 45,000 people out of the company’s global workforce of 228,000.
The shift is part of Microsoft’s broader strategy to restructure operations amid massive investments in AI and cloud infrastructure. The company has earmarked nearly $80 billion in data center spending for this fiscal year, pushing leadership to reevaluate roles and streamline other departments to manage costs.
A major sign of the changing strategy came in April, when the tech giant announced plans to rely more on third-party firms to manage software sales to small and medium-sized businesses—a move that insiders say laid the groundwork for the sales team reductions.
While the company declined to comment officially, CEO Satya Nadella previously addressed workforce changes in an internal town hall, emphasizing the company’s aim to “reposition for what comes next”, rather than framing the layoffs as performance-related.
This marks a continued pattern for the tech giant, which often initiates organizational realignments around the fiscal year-end. In addition to layoffs in May and earlier this year, Microsoft also cut hundreds of roles in its gaming division following the Activision Blizzard acquisition.
With the final number of impacted roles still being determined, sources suggest that while sales will take the hardest hit, other departments may also be affected in the coming weeks.
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