In today’s economy, job cuts seem to be par for the course. We all expected to see major losses at vulnerable companies such as AMD, Circuit City, and Yahoo. Recently however, we have been seeing cuts at major technology employers that we once considered to be at least somewhat recession proof. These include companies such as Sony, Google, Adobe, and now even Microsoft. What started out as an unsubstantiated rumor now appears to be true and the Redmond based software giant is preparing to let go around 15,000 of its 90,000 global employees.
The bulk of the layoffs are expected to be absorbed by MSN, but Microsoft’s global operations are rumored to be under the microscope as well. Large cuts are also expected at its Europe, Middle East, and African operations. Like most companies in these tough times, this is likely to be more of a belt tightening then a white flag. Profitable operations will likely dodge the bullet but as of this point, the full nature of the cuts is not yet known.
The layoffs are likely to take place starting January 15th, and finish before Microsoft issue’s its Q2 results on January 22nd. 17 percent of its work force is a pretty substantial cut and we will just have to wait and see what brands or product lines will be affected going into 2009.
So have we hit rock bottom yet?
Source : http://www.maximumpc.com/
