Microsoft May Lay-off 10% (9K) Employees Across the Globe

After Google and Yahoo, now its time for Microsoft it seems. Well to be very fair, you can not be immune to this recession. And worse late than never, Microsoft has decided to lay 10% its employees across the globe. i.e. almost 9k! Microsoft Corp could very well be cutting jobs next month before it announces its fiscal year quarterly results. Insiders who work for the company say that things are looking grim while a few managers have leaked information about substantial workforce reductions on January 15, 2009.

I’ve been hearing some stealth layoffs around the SQL and BOSG groups, around 70+ people were given 6 weeks to find another position within the company, otherwise they are laid off,” an anonymous Microsoft worker said in a statement.

The news is in. All the money making groups cut 10 percent of the workforce,” says another Microsoft employee.

While much of this could be rumors, it does make sense that 10 percent would be cut. That seems to be the number which Yahoo, Google, Sony, and Sun have used to cut their workforces.

A few departments were re-organized.

Our 120+ person organization has just been broken up due to lack of budget. About 1/2 the team is staying, the other half is going to a number of different teams within the larger org. So far, we all appear to have jobs, but man, what a shocker, I thought ours was one of the more stable teams,” a Microsoft employee said. “I also don’t know if this is the first step towards a layoff, but for now, it seems we’ll have jobs for a few more months.”

One area in general, known as Live Meeting, also seems to have a shake-up going on. An employee who works in the department said it’s a very hostile environment right now.

People are pulled into meetings with management where they get interrogated about what they are working on, people are given impossible tasks like coding things not yet designed, automating things not get coded, documenting unfinished ideas. On top of that they must account for their time by the hour. Live Meeting is in its death throes,” a Live Meeting staffer said.

It makes sense that Microsoft has taken measures to re-organize certain departments. However, it is still unclear if the 10 percent workforce reduction is real or not. If it is real, we’ll find out on January 15, 2009. Best of luck to you if you are an MS employee.

[News source: itcareermania]