Much of the discussion around Microsoft is unsurprisingly focused on its attempt to buy up all of Activision-Blizzard to the tune of $70 billion, but this story is about something else the company is doing: handing employees their walking papers. Insider reports have revealed that just under 1,000 employees have been laid off across the entirety of the company.
An exact number isn’t specified in the reporting, but the figure amounts to “hundreds” of employees, including one employee who claimed to have been hired only a month ago. Among the divisions hit were staffers in the Xbox division and members of Studio Alpha, which was formed to create war-gaming simulations. It’s unclear how many employees from Xbox were made redundant.
According to a Microsoft spokesperson, these layoffs are part of an evaluation of “business priorities” and “structural adjustments” as Microsoft simultaneously promises to “invest in [its] business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead.” The company had also announced in July that it would lay off 1% of its workforce – which would mean about 1,800 out of 180,000 employees – in the face of a coming recession, though it’s unclear whether these layoffs were a part of those plans.
