Microsoft has confirmed it is laying off 9,000 employees worldwide — roughly 4% of its workforce, with 830 of those job cuts hitting its home state of Washington, reports CNBC.
This latest round of layoffs comes as the tech giant seeks to eliminate redundancy and encourage employees to focus on meaningful work, while continuing to restructure its workforce, reduce redundancies, and intensify its investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing.
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Wide-spread Layoffs
According to a document Microsoft submitted to Washington employment officials, the layoffs span a wide swath of departments and roles, including gaming, research, sales, hardware, engineering, legal, and cloud solution architecture, as the company seeks to streamline operations.
Nearly a dozen game design workers were let go, along with three audio designers, two mechanical engineers, one optical engineer, and a lab technician. The cut also included five individual contributors, one manager from its prestigious Microsoft Research division, ten lawyers, and six hardware engineers.
Further, the company’s Washington layoffs included 16 customer success managers, 28 in sales strategy, five in sales compensation, and one government affairs worker. Additionally, 17 roles were cut in cloud solution architecture, despite the company’s strong growth in its Azure and cloud services, its fastest-growing revenue segments.
While CEO Satya Nadella has not publicly commented on these latest layoffs, an internal memo sent to gaming division employees on Wednesday from Xbox CEO Phil Spencer said the cuts would place the video game business “for enduring success and allow us to focus on strategic growth areas.”
Xbox to Follow
Xbox would “follow Microsoft’s lead in removing layers of management to increase agility and effectiveness. I recognize that these changes come at a time when we have more players, games, and gaming hours than ever before,” Spencer wrote.
Affected employees are encouraged to apply for other roles within its gaming division, assuring them that their applications will receive priority review.
Spencer added that the company will “protect what is thriving and concentrate effort on areas with the greatest potential, while delivering on the expectations the company has for our business.”
Meanwhile, a company spokesperson added that the Redmond giant is continuing to implement “organizational and workforce changes that are necessary to position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace.”
This marks Microsoft’s third significant wave of job cuts in 2025. Following over 6,000 job cuts in May and another 300 in June, the company has now trimmed over 15,000 roles this year. In Washington alone, Microsoft has slashed more than 3,100 jobs since spring.
