The American technology giant began to send dismissal opinions on Wednesday, which affect the Xbox video games division and other company divisions.
The company refused to specify the number of people launched, but it indicated that they will represent less than 4 % of the workforce it had a year ago.
Microsoft said reductions will affect several teams around the world, including its sales division.
“We continue to implement the organizational changes necessary to best position the company and its teams on a dynamic market,” the company said in a press release.
Xbox’s chief executive officer, Phil Spencer, also sent a note on Wednesday to the employees indicating that these job cuts would allow video game activity “to guarantee lasting success and to focus on strategic growth axes”.
They would also follow “the example of Microsoft by removing hierarchical levels to gain agility and efficiency,” wrote Mr. Spencer.
Microsoft employed 228,000 full -time people last June, date of its last annual report on its workforce. The company announced on Wednesday that its last layoffs would cause a reduction of almost 4 % of its workforce, or around 9,000 people. However, at least three layoffs have already taken place this year, and it is unlikely that the new hires will live up to losses.
Until now, the largest dismissal of the year has taken place in May, when Microsoft began to fire around 6,000 people, or almost 3 % of its global workforce, and the most important job cuts for more than two years, the company investing massively in artificial intelligence.
Microsoft also dismissed 300 other people at its headquarters in Redmond, in the state of Washington in June, in addition to the nearly 2,000 people who lost their job in the Puget Sound region in May, according to the opinions sent to employment officials of the Washington State.
The layoffs announced in May mainly concern software and product management positions, according to lists sent by the company to Washington and California recruitment agencies, where job cuts have also affected Microsoft offices in San Francisco Bay.
Microsoft’s financial director Amy Hood, said at a conference call on the financial results in April that the company focused on “the constitution of efficient teams and the strengthening of our agility by reducing hierarchical levels with fewer executives”.
The artificial intelligence in question?
The company has repeatedly presented its recent layoffs as registering in a strategy to reduce hierarchical levels, but the emphasis on software engineering jobs has fueled concerns about the possibility that its own AI code development products can reduce the number of people necessary for programming stations.
Microsoft President and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said this year that “maybe 20 to 30 % of the code” of some Microsoft programming projects “is probably fully written by software”.
However, the latest layoffs seem to focus on the business activity sectors, observed Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities.
“They are focusing more and more on AI, infonuing and new generation of Microsoft, and really seek to reduce the costs linked to Xbox and certain more traditional sectors,” Ives explained. I think they have overeated over the years. Nadella and her team take care to maintain efficiency, and this is the rule at Wall Street. ”
Xbox’s reduction in the workforce follows the expansion of several years from Microsoft around its game console, which culminated in 2023 with the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the Californian creator of successful franchises like Call of Duty and Candy Crush, for US $ 75.4 billion. Previously, to compete with the Sony PlayStation, the company had invested US $ 7.5 billion in the acquisition of Zenimax Media, the parent company of Bethesda SoftWorks, video game publisher established in Le Maryland.
