Microsoft slashes 1,000 jobs, mostly in sales, customer services: Report

SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft has reportedly reduced its workforce further by 1,000 over the past week, mostly in sales and customer services teams.

According to a report, citing sources, the new layoffs are beyond the 10,000 jobs that the tech giant planned to eliminate earlier this year.

It’s, however, a regular exercise for Microsoft to make changes at the start of a new fiscal year, which began July 1, the report noted.

Microsoft has reportedly shut its “Digital Sales and Success” group, a sales and customer service team.

“The company also eliminated the customer solutions manager role, moving some, but not many, employees to another role called customer success account management,” according to the report.

The job cuts also affected engineering project managers and marketing department employees.

Last week, reports surfaced that Microsoft has laid off 276 employees, mostly in customer service, support and sales teams, in a new job cut round.

“Organisational and workforce adjustments are a necessary and regular part of managing our business,” a Microsoft spokesperson had said in a statement.

“We will continue to prioritise and invest in strategic growth areas for our future and in support of our customers and partners,” the spokesperson added.

Several posts on the leading professional networking platform LinkedIn revealed job cuts that targeted customer support and sales jobs across teams.

In May, Microsoft slashed 158 jobs in Washington State which were not part of the 10,000 announced earlier.

According to reports, more than 2,700 Seattle-area workers were affected by the layoffs announced earlier this year.

The tech giant had more than 220,000 employees (as reported earlier this year).