Microsoft employees got an unwelcome surprised this morning when the computing giant launched a refresh round of layoffs.

800 positions across Microsoft’s global workforce will be departing the company today, with about a quarter of the cuts coming at the company’s Redmond, Washington HQ according to TechFlash.

The new round of cuts takes the number of Microsoft jobs cut since last year to over 5000, for a peak of 95,000 (excluding contract workers.)

More details at TechFlash here.

800 to be Cut In New Round of Microsoft Layoffs is a post from: The Inquisitr

Microsoft Layoffs 2009: Phase Two

The Microsoft layoffs plan involves the elimination of 5,000 jobs by June of 2010. The first cuts, in January, involved about 1,400 workers. Ballmer has not specified how many people are losing their jobs in this week’s wave. He does say, however, that affected employees will be notified today. He also indicates the company is “mostly but not all done” with its planned 5,000 job eliminations. Some sources suggest this round will hit both Microsoft’s U.S. and international offices.

The cuts, Microsoft said in January, will span across several departments, including research and development, marketing, sales, finance, legal, human resources, and IT.

Steve Ballmer’s Memo

The following is Steve Ballmer’s internal memo regarding the second phase of Microsoft layoffs on May 5, 2009.

In January, in response to the global economic downturn, I announced our plan to adjust the company’s cost structure through spending reductions and job eliminations. Today, we are implementing the second phase of this plan.

This is difficult news to share. Because our success at Microsoft has always been the direct result of the talent, hard work, and commitment of our people, eliminating positions is hard.

Today’s action includes positions in the United States and in a number of countries around the world. In the U.S., affected employees will be notified directly by their managers today. In other countries, local leadership teams will provide more specific information about the impact to their organizations.

With this announcement, we are mostly but not all done with the planned 5,000 job eliminations by June 2010. We are moving quickly to reach this target in response to consistent feedback from our people and business groups that it’s important to make decisions and reduce uncertainty for employees as quickly as possible, and so that organizations can concentrate their efforts and resources on strategic objectives.

As we move forward, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure including additional job eliminations.

For those of you directly affected by today’s announcement, I want to thank you for your contribution to Microsoft and assure you that we will continue to provide support as we did during the previous job eliminations.

And for everyone across the company, I want to reemphasize how much I appreciate the way you have pulled together to help the company respond to this difficult economic environment. There’s no doubt that these are very challenging times. But together, we are making the right choices to ensure that we will continue to deliver great products and position ourselves for strong future growth and profitability.

Thank you for your continued hard work, commitment, and focus.

Steve

Microsoft Layoffs 2009: Read Steve Ballmer’s Memo is a post from: The Inquisitr

Microsoft Layoffs

The company announced a round of layoffs as part of its second-quarter report this morning. Five-thousand workers will get the ax over the next year-and-a-half.

The Microsoft job cuts will span across several departments, including research and development, marketing, sales, finance, legal, human resources, and IT. The first round of cuts will occur today with the elimination of 1,400 positions. The majority of the Microsoft layoffs will come from the company’s Redmond headquarters.

Microsoft reported a revenue of $16.63 billion for the second quarter, up 2 percent from the same period last year. Client revenue, however, was down 8 percent — a drop blamed on “PC market weakness and a continued shift to lower priced netbooks.” Some analysts tied the statement directly to the struggle of the Vista operating system.

You can see the full report of the Microsoft results here. The Seattle Times also provides some good perspective with a look at past Microsoft job cuts dating back to 1996.

Microsoft Layoffs 2009: 5,000 Jobs Cut is a post from: The Inquisitr