Microsoft Lays Off 2,100 Employees

Microsoft is notifying approximately 2,100 employees Thursday that they’re being laid off, in the second round of layoffs since the company announced in July that it would be cutting 18,000 jobs.

The cuts are spread across multiple business units and countries, a Microsoft spokeswoman said.

The company declined to provide more details of the cuts.

The jobs being cut Thursday are part of the 18,000 jobs that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in July he would be eliminating over the next year.

The cuts are partly related to Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s phone business, which brought in some 25,000 Nokia employees to Microsoft, and partly a reflection of Nadella’s vision of a Microsoft that’s more agile.

Most of the cuts — about 12,500 professional and factory positions — are former Nokia positions, with some Microsoft positions also being eliminated because of job duplication related to the Nokia acquisition. The remaining 5,500 jobs cut across multiple functions, including marketing and engineering.

Of the 18,000 jobs, Microsoft had started in July to eliminate 13,000 of them. The majority of the remaining 5,000 would be notified over the next six months, the company said then.

This article appeared in print in the September 19th, 2014 edition of Hamodia.