ALBAWABA — Microsoft is expected to announce more layoffs in a number of its engineering divisions as early as Wednesday, as technology giants continue trimming headcount offset global economic conditions, according to an unnamed source familiar with the matter.
The Washington state-based company, which industry trackers say has more than 220,000 workers - trimmed its ranks of employees twice last year, declined to comment on what it referred to as "rumor".
The unnamed source said the layoffs would be significantly larger than other rounds at Microsoft in the past year, which had impacted less than 1 percent of the software giant’s workforce but remained uncommitted with a specific headcount.
The announcement would come a week before Microsoft is expected to report last year’s 4th quarter earnings.
Microsoft is forecast to post a sales gain of 2 percent, the slowest revenue increase since 2017, when it is expected to report earnings on January 24.
Microsoft has so far been taking small steps to deal with the possible slowdown in demand for software and services, with looming inflationary pressures and an ever-growing gloomy global economic outlook.
To reset for anticipated changes, Amazon laid off more than 18,000 employees, Meta announced cutting around 11,000 jobs last fall, Twitter slashed about half its workforce, and Salesforce laid off about 10 percent of workers earlier this month.
