Microsoft lays off 3% of workforce. Not sure about gaming division yet

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Getting a job isn't a fucking appointment for life where your employer is obligated to love and cherish you through sickness and health till death do you part.

Okay Microsoft employees... look at yourself... now look at the 16 employees to the left of you... and the 16 employees to the right of you... *gasp*... one of you will be going home. And you'll have to find a new job... and you're going to somehow have to pull that off while having... *sob*... one of the biggest and most successful companies in history on your resume.

This just shows how greedy these billion and trillion dollar companies are. THEY ARE TRASH!
 
Maybe it was greed. Who knows. Neither of us know and it doesnt even matter.

If a company big or small wants to fire you because they dont want you, then out you go. It cant be that hard to keep a job. Even when a company publicly announces job cuts, it's what? Maybe 5% of the company tops? Often less (like MS 3%). Only time you get truly large cuts is when the company is tanking, overhiring, or the company is literally on the way to bankruptcy and they gut tons of functions or close down stores.

MS has hired 100,000 more people than 10 years ago. The lay off some people last couple years. Net difference still +100k. So really they actually hired more than that.

Nobody ever cheers a company for hiring tons of people. But only bring it up when they fire.

Sylvester Stallone Facepalm GIF
 
Nobody ever cheers a company for hiring tons of people. But only bring it up when they fire.
I honestly cannot tell anymore if some posts are just trolling pretending to be serious.

Maybe it was greed. Who knows. Neither of us know and it doesnt even matter.
You don't wait until the end of a quarter to fire "underperforming" employees, and you don't do it in batches of thousands. This was a layoff based on Microsoft no longer needing those people in those roles, and meeting a certain number on what they're spending for salaries.

Also, most people have enough empathy to feel or at least think it sucks that thousands of people were laid off 2 weeks after reading an email from their company that said "thanks to all your hard work, we had another amazing quarter with profits up x%. Good job everyone. Microsoft is lucky to have you".
 
"Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2025 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $70.1 billion in revenue and a net income of $25.8 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 13 percent, and net income has increased by 18 percent. Microsoft was expected to report $68.42 billion in revenue, so the results have beaten Wall Street expectations."

I'm glad this corporate entity is doing fantastically, very cool, I'm sure firing all those people will make the next quarter look even better :messenger_unamused:
 
I honestly cannot tell anymore if some posts are just trolling pretending to be serious.


You don't wait until the end of a quarter to fire "underperforming" employees, and you don't do it in batches of thousands. This was a layoff based on Microsoft no longer needing those people in those roles, and meeting a certain number on what they're spending for salaries.

Also, most people have enough empathy to feel or at least think it sucks that thousands of people were laid off 2 weeks after reading an email from their company that said "thanks to all your hard work, we had another amazing quarter with profits up x%. Good job everyone. Microsoft is lucky to have you".
Tango Gameworks knows. 😜
 
Maybe it was greed. Who knows. Neither of us know and it doesnt even matter.

If a company big or small wants to fire you because they dont want you, then out you go. It cant be that hard to keep a job. Even when a company publicly announces job cuts, it's what? Maybe 5% of the company tops? Often less (like MS 3%). Only time you get truly large cuts is when the company is tanking, overhiring, or the company is literally on the way to bankruptcy and they gut tons of functions or close down stores.

MS has hired 100,000 more people than 10 years ago. The lay off some people last couple years. Net difference still +100k. So really they actually hired more than that.

Nobody ever cheers a company for hiring tons of people. But only bring it up when they fire.
Never go full senjutsu
 
I honestly cannot tell anymore if some posts are just trolling pretending to be serious.


You don't wait until the end of a quarter to fire "underperforming" employees, and you don't do it in batches of thousands. This was a layoff based on Microsoft no longer needing those people in those roles, and meeting a certain number on what they're spending for salaries.

Also, most people have enough empathy to feel or at least think it sucks that thousands of people were laid off 2 weeks after reading an email from their company that said "thanks to all your hard work, we had another amazing quarter with profits up x%. Good job everyone. Microsoft is lucky to have you".
Correct, and this is what's supposed to happen. A business doesn't employ people just because they can afford to pay their salaries. They hire people because they have productive work for those people to do that justifies their salary.

I feel for those people who lost their jobs. But a big reputable employer like MS is probably going to pay some pretty nice severance packages and/or offer early retirements. And a lot of these people will probably be able to move to a different position in the company if they have a decent reputation there.


I work for a large international company and that's how it worked for me. They announced they were closing down the facility I worked at and moving the operation to another country. They offered me 5 months salary as a retention bonus to stick around til the end. I would've got a nice severance package as well, but I transferred to another role in the company (that paid 17% more). Maybe like 50% of the folks there (I'd say almost all the "keepers") were able to transfer to other positions.

It was stressful at the time but it ended up being literally the best thing that ever happened to me in my career.
 
Fricken Ass of Can Whooping Ass of Can Whooping and his threads, it already brought butterfly effect :messenger_face_steam: :messenger_spock:

 
Amid increase in profits and revenue, they decided to fire almost 7000 workers.
I swear CEOs, including Satya, are complete sociopaths.
It's his job to increase shareholder value. Line must go up. Nothing else goes into it. It's business. You're way over-thinking it.
 
Microsoft overhired during the pandemic and as they ramped up to AI everything.

they have always been top heavy, and have been even moreso for the last 5 years. there is a lot of redundancy in all of their divisions.

as someone who worked there for 10 years, and has continued to do regular contract work for them, there are still a lot more headcount reductions that need to occur.
 
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Correct, and this is what's supposed to happen. A business doesn't employ people just because they can afford to pay their salaries. They hire people because they have productive work for those people to do that justifies their salary.

I feel for those people who lost their jobs. But a big reputable employer like MS is probably going to pay some pretty nice severance packages and/or offer early retirements. And a lot of these people will probably be able to move to a different position in the company if they have a decent reputation there.


I work for a large international company and that's how it worked for me. They announced they were closing down the facility I worked at and moving the operation to another country. They offered me 5 months salary as a retention bonus to stick around til the end. I would've got a nice severance package as well, but I transferred to another role in the company (that paid 17% more). Maybe like 50% of the folks there (I'd say almost all the "keepers") were able to transfer to other positions.

It was stressful at the time but it ended up being literally the best thing that ever happened to me in my career.
Agree with everything you said. Bolded the part that is troubling everything this comes up. The thinking that thousands of people losing their jobs is the fault of those thousands of people.
 
$25 billion in profit. Profits increased by 18%. Beats wall street expectations.

Still lays off 6,000 people.

They're not going to keep people on when the server farm can do the same job.

This is the future and I've been preaching it for years, people have no idea.
 
If they dont need them get rid of them. Why pay for deadweight?
Because when any civilization reaches peak inequality, revolution happens. And, trust me, you don't want to be rich when revolution kicks off. How you (and many others who think like you) missed this in History class is beyond me. It's not like one needs to get too deep into any book to figure this shit out. Or maybe you didn't miss it, maybe despite knowing inequality causes revolution you just have that much blind faith in security forces "keeping the peace" (translation: enforcing the status quo) while you keep living the capitalist dream.

Either way, as Dave Chappelle said: set 'em up, let's play!
 
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Yes? That does not change that MS praised them and then let them go.
Thats how PR works. No company laying off people will say they did a bad job. Heck, they probably could be sued if they tried stating that as fact.

Tango has never made games that have sold well. When the studio started they already had financial issues and Bethesda came around and bailed them out buying them in 2010. Then MS bought Bethesda in 2022. Then Tango got sut down and acquired by Krafton in 2024.

If it wasnt for corporate money, Tango wouldnt had shut down long time with with zero games released.
 
"Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2025 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $70.1 billion in revenue and a net income of $25.8 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 13 percent, and net income has increased by 18 percent. Microsoft was expected to report $68.42 billion in revenue, so the results have beaten Wall Street expectations."

I know it's their right to cut costs but man, that's just mean if they're actually beating expectations and still firing thousands of people. Cold world we live in sometimes.
 
Fricken Ass of Can Whooping Ass of Can Whooping and his threads, it already brought butterfly effect :messenger_face_steam: :messenger_spock:

the most consumer friendly company.... until "The Business" knocks at the door.
wow, what a smart individuals those two are.
 
I know it's their right to cut costs but man, that's just mean if they're actually beating expectations and still firing thousands of people. Cold world we live in sometimes.
It's just human nature. Most people and companies like to save money, unless they are the type with bottomless pockets spending cash on anything that moves.

Put it this way.

The biggest stores are places like Walmart, McDonalds, Home Depot, Costco etc.... They grew to monolithic sizes due to everyday products at good prices, return policies and they crop up everywhere. Lets face it, its not like they sell top tier commercial grade brands.

Every person but the poorest bum on a street corner can spend more money and support smaller stores or that mom and pop shop trying their best to survive. All anyone has to do is spend a few more bucks and buy that tool set or bag of dinner rolls there to help them out.

Nope. The big box stores get bigger and small stores get crowded out and go belly up. All because Joe Bob and Sally Sue want to save $1 on a bag of dinner rolls buying it from mainstream grocery store. The european bakery shop buns are even going to be higher quality. Nope. Would rather save $1 and not care the neighbourhood store down the street folds.
 
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I know it's their right to cut costs but man, that's just mean if they're actually beating expectations and still firing thousands of people. Cold world we live in sometimes.

Yeah, that's what gets me and I'll never understand anyone trying to rationalize on behalf of a corporation that is....how rich gain?

<googles>

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Yeah.....fuck that. I'm sure Satya is going to get a nice fat bonus on top of it.
 
Thats how PR works. No company laying off people will say they did a bad job. Heck, they probably could be sued if they tried stating that as fact.

Tango has never made games that have sold well. When the studio started they already had financial issues and Bethesda came around and bailed them out buying them in 2010. Then MS bought Bethesda in 2022. Then Tango got sut down and acquired by Krafton in 2024.

If it wasnt for corporate money, Tango wouldnt had shut down long time with with zero games released.
What does that change? It still went down the way it went down. A couple of you took a remark that was not made to be serious a bit seriously. I even threw in a winky so people would understand it was meant that way.

Regardless, (and a bit more serious) this was a case of Microsoft telling us that Hi-Fi Rush was a breakout hit in "all key measurements" (Game Pass engagement? 🤷‍♂️) and not pleased with the actual sales figures (making money). If you want to say that is just Microsoft being Microsoft and marketing... ...I will agree 100%.
 
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Yeah, that's what gets me and I'll never understand anyone trying to rationalize on behalf of a corporation that is....how rich gain?

Why does it matter how rich a company is? If a position is redundant and being automated there's no reason for that position to exist anymore.

This has happened since work place inception.

Mines in Australia used to have 10s of thousands of workers crawling over them. They're now being automated with RC and preset routes, the trucks don't even have drivers in them anymore.

The same as our train system… no longer has drivers, you can find a thousand examples throughout history. It's natural progression, this is humanities progression as a whole and something that should be applauded.

Microsoft doesn't need to make positions redundant to boost their 'revenue' it's not even a drop in the bucket and wouldn't even register on the chart and if those positions are reliant on human interaction and the company that would actually end up hurting them.

I have no doubt 99% of these positions are now redundant to AI.

There's an argument to be made about universal basic income at a certain threshold but we're not there yet.
 
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That is a lot of people.

Not suprising when you know that most engineers working on MS Office don't ever get a single line of code in the shipped product (something I read a long long time ago, don't ask me the source).
 
Why does it matter how rich a company is? If a position is redundant and being automated there's no reason for that position to exist anymore.

This has happened since work place inception.

Not going through all that. But no....usually companies that are massively rich and raking in even more profits and beating Wall Street expectations do not lay off thousands. If this were a case of a failing division that was being closed or something along those lines then sure, but it isn't. It's just greed.
 
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I've never heard of other fields having the kind of multi-thousand layoffs that IT seems to have annually. Google, Amazon, Dell etc all have laid of thousands of employees in the last 12 months.
It happens throughout the entertainment industry as well.

Most layoffs happen silently, they fly under the radar.
 
Six thousand employees and none of them are Phil Spencer
it was him or 6000 workers....A small sacrifice, so that the most caring, loving, honest, gamer, and pro-consumer CEO could continue saving the industry and gaming. You must understand… he wakes up every day with that purpose in mind
 
Not going through all that. But no....usually companies that are massively rich and raking in even more profits and beating Wall Street expectations do not lay off thousands. If this were a case of a failing division that was being closed or something along those lines then sure, but it isn't. It's just greed.
Not true at all.

Thats because all the general public sees are confirmed layoff statements from companies. They also never say they'll go on hiring sprees too unless Amazon or WM says they are recruiting for seasonal spikes.

For example, companies do voluntary layoffs all the time. But that is rarely publicized. My old company did it and they let go so many people they had to rehire back because too many people ended up taking it! Giant stable Fortune 500 company that never loses money. My bro works for a giant pharma company and they did the same thing years ago.

You can call it greed. I call it efficiency. No different than living at home. Why waste money on stuff that isnt worth keeping around.

Think of it in terms of gaming. Why do some people do no sub plans or the bare minimum plan? But some do the top tier plan for an extra $100? I'm sure most people can scrape up an extra $100 to max out on downloadable content. But some people prefer spending less because they dont need all the games and features the top plans have. I think my ISP has 5 tiers of internet service. I pick the second crappiest one. I could probably get by with the worst one if I tested it out. Thats good enough for what I need. Of course I can afford the top plan paying an extra $50/mth. I wouldnt even notice an extra $600/yr missing from my bank account. But not needed. So I'll pick a low tier plan for cheaper.

That's my choice. I've seen counter reasons. I remember seeing them on GAF too. One reason.... well if people got lots of extra money lying around why dont they just spend it to prop up sales for businesses.

Sure, I could do that. I prefer not to. If they want my money, make something good at a good price and I'll buy it then. If not, it's going to stockpile in my investment accounts or buying up properties.
 
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Not true at all.

Thats because all the general public sees are confirmed layoff statements from companies. They also never say they'll go on hiring sprees too unless Amazon or WM says they are recruiting for seasonal spikes.

For example, companies do voluntary layoffs all the time. But that is rarely publicized. My old company did it and they let go so many people they had to rehire back because too many people ended up taking it! Giant stable Fortune 500 company that never loses money. My bro works for a giant pharma company and they did the same thing years ago.

You can call it greed. I call it efficiency. No different than living at home. Why waste money on stuff that isnt worth keeping around.
that's fine. but i will tell you this.

better not be a PR bullshit statement from executives down the line then.
 
I don't want to sound morbid, but I had a 65% chance of MS laying off people (between this and the next financial report). I was only thinking about the gaming division, though (the only thing I care about in this context).

So, I'm not in shock or even amused. I am more intrigued about when are we going to see the next round of studio closures/games cancellations...

Ninja Theory
Compulsion
Turn 10
Double Fine (maybe a future similar to Toys for bob)... who knows.

but im fairly certain that the Gaming Division is not making money at all


It's worth noting that there appears to be a hiring freeze at each of the studios you mentioned.

But this is what I was alluding to last week in terms of the instability at Microsoft.
 
I have no problem with AI.
I do have a problem with Microsoft turning OpenAI into a for-profit extension of their business.
 
Not going through all that. But no....usually companies that are massively rich and raking in even more profits and beating Wall Street expectations do not lay off thousands. If this were a case of a failing division that was being closed or something along those lines then sure, but it isn't. It's just greed.
Massive companies do it all the time, especially those with multiple divisions doing completely different stuff. Although MS has a history of just cutting the bottom x% of employees based on job performance ratings.
 
I've never heard of other fields having the kind of multi-thousand layoffs that IT seems to have annually. Google, Amazon, Dell etc all have laid of thousands of employees in the last 12 months.
The IT field/companies are massive (MS, Google and Amazon are some of the biggest companies in the world) so the layoffs seem massive but as a percentage you're likely to see the same layoffs in other companies too. Not labour work but any company that deals with data or even digital creative roles.
 
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Why does it matter how rich a company is? If a position is redundant and being automated there's no reason for that position to exist anymore.

This has happened since work place inception.

Mines in Australia used to have 10s of thousands of workers crawling over them. They're now being automated with RC and preset routes, the trucks don't even have drivers in them anymore.

The same as our train system… no longer has drivers, you can find a thousand examples throughout history. It's natural progression, this is humanities progression as a whole and something that should be applauded.

Microsoft doesn't need to make positions redundant to boost their 'revenue' it's not even a drop in the bucket and wouldn't even register on the chart and if those positions are reliant on human interaction and the company that would actually end up hurting them.

I have no doubt 99% of these positions are now redundant to AI.

There's an argument to be made about universal basic income at a certain threshold but we're not there yet.
I think we are, it would not only solve a lot of problems, but would be the moral thing to do.
Today most civilized societies already have a form of UBI, you just need to be determined disabled of some form to get it through social security.

There should be a floor to allow people to survive, granted to everyone, and those with the drive and ambition to progress would still put in the work to make themselves wealthy.
 
Due repeating, baldy could be replaced by AI. All upper management at MS could be. It would make stock holders way more money not paying their bonuses and salaries for doing bare minimum work.
 
Six thousand employees and none of them are Phil Spencer
U would think with this guy terrible performance phil gets laid off even before xbox series gen reveal, but nopes, wonder what stuff he has on satya so that he is kept around despite fucking up so badly :D
 
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