Microsoft job cuts: HoloLens, advertising and marketing departments hit
The earliest round of Microsoft's 11,000 layoffs happened Wednesday, with employees in the areas of marketing, advertising, recruiting, gaming and mixed reality among those to publicly report their leave from the tech giant.
Laid-off employees took to Microsoft-owned LinkedIn to post about their job loss and to seek new opportunities. Microsoft and other tech vendors have blamed recent layoffs on customer demand returning to normal after the scramble to remote work and digital transformation during the pandemic.
The US also continues to battle rising inflation with rising interest rates, another factor in the job cuts.
The tech giant has reported that 878 workers will be permanently laid off in its home state, according to a notice filed with Washington state, where it's headquarters are located.
Recruiting-related Microsoft employees who posted to LinkedIn about their layoff include:
* A global technical recruiter with Microsoft for more than a year
* A technical recruiter at Microsoft for more than three years
* A director of global talent acquisition with Microsoft for more than two years
* A university recruiter with Microsoft for more than two years
Microsoft gaming employees who posted about their layoff include:
* A world building artist at 343 Industries, the Microsoft subsidiary known for the "Halo" series of video games
* A licensing coordinator at Microsoft Xbox subsidiaries ZeniMax and Bethesda Softworks for more than four years
* An associate public relations manager for Bethesda
Microsoft marketing, advertising and other employees who posted on LinkedIn about their layoff include:
* At least two Microsoft marketing employees for the company's industry solutions, one with Microsoft for more than six years and the other with the company for more than four years
* A senior client partner and digital adviser for health and wellness in Microsoft Advertising, whose time at Microsoft totaled more than 10 years on and off
* A senior client partner in Microsoft Advertising who worked at the company for more than 16 years
* A senior client partner for Microsoft's PromoteIQ vendor marketing program scaler for online retailers
* A level two product manager on the Edge security team with Microsoft for more than four years
"I woke up to the news about my employer laying off 10,000 employees starting today," wrote a talent acquisition recruiter at Microsoft who worked for the company for more than a year. "Unfortunately, I was among the employees. It is truly a sad day for everyone that was affected," the recruiter wrote.
"I've loved working at Microsoft, and am super proud of what I was able to do there, and the friendships I've made," read one post by a senior programme manager for the mixed reality developer ecosystem who'd been with Microsoft for more than four years. "And my heart goes out to everyone else affected by the layoffs."
Microsoft's HoloLens virtual reality hardware and the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS, were among the business units hit by layoffs, according to Bloomberg. The layoff is due to the federal government declining the US Army's request for $400 million to buy up to 6,900 HoloLens goggles this fiscal year.
The tech industry as a whole has been hit by a wave of cutbacks as the sector grapples with inflation and rising interest rates in the US and concerns over a possible global recession. Citrix, Informatica, Salesforce, Cisco, HP, Intel, Elastic, Aqua Security, Microsoft-focused AvePoint and N-able are some of the vendors to recently announce cuts.
The 10,000 employees who will be let go at Microsoft represent less than 5 percent of the vendor's global workforce.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in an online post that while Microsoft is eliminating roles in some areas, it will continue to hire in "key strategic areas."
In fact, about 20 job openings were posted on Microsoft's careers website on or after Wednesday.
Roles Microsoft is filling include a level two technical programme manager for Azure; a user experience product management principal manager for Azure Infrastructure as a Service; a product manager for the Microsoft Intelligent Communications Collaboration Cloud; a principal product data analyst for the Office product group; a software engineer for Word; a principal engineering manager for the Microsoft 365 substrat capacity management team; and a senior software engineer for the Teams calling, meetings and devices group.
CRN has reached out to Microsoft about whether its partner organisation is affected by the layoffs.
This article first appeared on Computing's sister site CRN.