Microsoft Layoffs Hit Over 600 Workers in Washington State

Microsoft has pink-slipped more than 600 workers in Washington state as part of its layoffs announced last month impacting 10,000 employees.

The Microsoft layoffs are confirmed in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice filed with the Washington state Employment Security Department. They layoffs are happening at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, and offices in nearby Bellevue and Issaquah.

Microsoft is among the more than 20 companies doing business in the channel that have cut workers since the start of the year. This week alone, Dell Technologies, Secureworks, Zoom and GitHub have announced layoffs, in all impacting thousands of workers.

According to Bloomberg, employees are being cut from Microsoft’s Surface devices, HoloLens mixed reality hardware and Xbox units.

Layoffs Among ‘Hard Choices’ Microsoft Has Made

Last month, Microsoft announced job cuts impacting a little less than 5% of its workforce. The move is in response to macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the job cuts in a blog. The layoffs are taking place this quarter.

Microsoft’s Satya Nadella

“These are the kinds of hard choices we have made throughout our 47-year history to remain a consequential company in this industry that is unforgiving to anyone who doesn’t adapt to platform shifts,” Nadella said last month.

In October, Microsoft layoffs impacted close to 1,000 workers. That came as the software giant expected its fiscal first-quarter revenue growth to slow.

On Thursday, we reported that Microsoft-owned GitHub is initiating layoffs impacting 10% of its workforce and is also going fully remote.

According to TechCrunch, GitHub had about 3,000 employees, meaning the layoffs are impacting about 300 workers. The company is also closing all of its offices as their leases end. The layoffs started immediately and will continue through the next several months.