Granted these are all reports from outside news sources but there are a number of them.
Where there’s smoke there might well be fire.
U.K. broadcaster Sky News has reported that Microsoft plans to cut about 5% of its workforce or about 11,000 roles.
Bloomberg has reported that the company plans to cut jobs in a number of engineering divisions. The cuts will be significantly larger than other rounds in the past year, the Bloomberg report said.
Business Insider reported that Microsoft could cut recruiting staff by as much as one-third.
Microsoft declined to comment on the reports.
The company had 221,000 full-time employees, including 122,000 in the United States and 99,000 internationally, as of June 30.
This news is different from reports that Amazon (AMZN) or Salesforce (CRM) will cut jobs because they over-staffed or over-expanded or overestimated growth rates. Microsoft, if these reports are accurate, is signaling that the PC computer market continues soft and that its facing pressure at its cloud unit Azure, which has been the key driver for growth in recent quarters.
Microsoft is due to report earnings on January 24. Which may have something to do with the company’s reluctance to comment. Most companies–except for Tesla (TSLA)– are reluctant to comment so close to an earnings release.
