Microsoft Layoffs to Continue Next Week, 700 Positions to be Axed – IBM Reloaded

Microsoft layoffs

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is still shaking things up inside the company. Microsoft layoffs will continue through next week, with 700 more jobs to be axed before the month is out.

The layoffs at Microsoft are a part of the plan to cut 2,850 jobs that was announced during the annual earnings report call in June 2016. Most of those positions have already been cut from the 113,000 strong Microsoft workforce around the world, and 700 more are being axed next week, when Microsoft’s next earnings call is due.

Apparently, Microsoft isn’t doing this to cut costs. The main purpose is to refresh the skills that their employees have (or lack, rather). That makes sense because the company is aggressively hiring at the same time. According to Business Insider, there are over 1,600 job openings at Microsoft posted on LinkedIn.

In a way, it is similar to what IBM has been doing. Even though one analyst estimated that total IBM layoffs could hit 14,000 employees, the company also opened up 20,000 new positions.

These companies aren’t trying to cut corners to show investors a profit; they’re merely retooling themselves for the new direction they’re taking with their respective businesses. Both IBM and Microsoft have a ton of legacy business that has been dragging them down, and both need a new crop of workers with new skills that existing employees don’t have.

That’s the reality of the situation, unfortunately, and the worst part is that the people most affected are the ones that have been with these companies for several years. A severance package isn’t going to help a person in their early 50s get by until they find another job. That might work for a 30-year-old, but not tenured members of staff.

Nevertheless, Microsoft is doing exactly what IBM did, because it needs a different set of skills to run its core businesses. Those core businesses are no longer Windows and MS Office; they’re shifting into cloud-based products, devices and more. That’s why the layoffs are affecting multiple departments because everything needs a refresh. A Windows license marketing expert with a decade of experience is no longer worth the money he or she is being paid, for example, and that’s the hard truth.




While everyone is busy worrying that artificial intelligence will take away their jobs, few realize that the tech job market itself is changing. And, unless they upgrade their skills to more forward-looking domains, they’re sure to be on the layoffs list when the time comes.

Take Apple’s self-driving car project, for example. What happened when Apple made the simple decision that it would not focus on making cars, but double-down on the software that makes it possible? They did a “reboot” on the group, with layoffs reportedly running into the dozens or hundreds, depending on the source.

It’s happening with every technology company that has evolving needs. No company can afford – or will afford, even if it can – to support staff with skills it no longer needs. Job security is a myth. Your job is only as secure as the value it continues to bring to your organization and the objectives of that organization. The moment that value drops to zero, or starts approaching it, there goes the security.




That’s true whether you’re a programmer with outdated skills or the head of an obsolete product division.

What’s happening with Microsoft and what happened at IBM will soon spread to other big tech companies struggling to catch up with the fast-moving tech landscape. It’s already happening to Oracle, Intel, HPE, Cisco, EMC, Symantec and several other big companies. In fact, it was estimated that 2016 layoffs will hit 260,000 tech workers.

It might even get worse in 2017. Until the world’s top technologies realign themselves to their new objectives, it will continue to happen.




On the plus side, things will subsequently settle down. But until they do, hundreds of thousands of people will continue to suffer the effects of technological evolution.

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