Microsoft has decided to hand over pink slips to as many as 1,000 employees including some from the Xbox and Azure space. This is the third time that Microsoft has laid off employees since July this year. In July the company fired 1% of its 1,80,000 workforce as part of re-alignment. In August, the company fired another 200 employees from its research and development division.

Though Microsoft didn’t confirm the number of people that have been laid off, several fired employees took to Twitter to confirm the news. Greg Chapman, who worked as the principal architect in Microsoft Azure tweeted, “Whelp, it’s been an adventure. Today me and my entire team were laid off. 12 years here at Microsoft and 25 in #gamedev. Details shortly once the shock wears off.”

“Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis and make structural adjustments accordingly. We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead,” a news organisation quoted a Microsoft spokesperson as saying.

Layoffs across big tech firms

In the past few months, several big technology firms have laid off employees amidst the tech winter. So far, OTT platform Netflix has laid off 450 employees, whereas Meta is planning to sack as many as 12,000 employees or 15% of its workforce. In June, Twitter sacked as many as 30% of its employees.

According to a Crunchbase report, as many as 44,000 employees lost their jobs in the US tech market, as of mid-October. “The public markets have been hit hard in 2022, and that’s trickled down to the private markets. Inflation concerns, rising interest rates and geopolitical issues have all contributed to a roller-coaster stock market,” the report said.

“Startups—especially those that benefited from a pandemic boom that’s starting to cool—are feeling the pressure too. Valuations, particularly at the late stage, have started to dip, and startups say it’s much more difficult to raise new funding in this environment,” it added.

India’s layoff Dilemma

Notably, in India, the layoff situation is no different. The domestic start-up ecosystem witnessed the highest number of layoffs of more than 10,000 employees amidst the funding winter. Of this, the edtech sector has been the worst hit with more than 6,000 employees being sacked so far.

Apart from this, the domestic industry is also facing the double-whammy of ‘Moonlighting’ and ‘Quiet Quitting.’ The big IT firms such as Infosys, Wipro and TCS have condemned ‘Moonlighting’, with Wipro sacking as many as 300 employees over the issue.

Meanwhile, the attrition rate in India’s IT industry surged in 2022. A survey by Aon Plc has revealed that in H1 of 2022, India witnessed an attrition rate of 20.3%. Another report by recruitment agency Michael Page has predicted the attrition rate to be at 86% for 2022.

Layoffs at IT industry

Microsoft sacks 1,000 employees amid global recession