Microsoft Lays Off 3,000 Workers in Last Stage of Firings

Microsoft (MSFT) has laid off another 3,000 workers worldwide in what the vendor said was the last stage of an 18,000 workforce reduction it initiated in July when it cut some 13,000 staffers from its payroll.

“We’ve taken another step that will complete almost all the 18,000 reductions announced in July,” the company said in a statement. “The reductions happening today are spread across many different business units, and many different countries.”

Much of this latest round is said to have hit human resources, finance, sales and marketing and IT staffers, as reported by ZDNet. Some 638 of the jobs cut reportedly are from Microsoft’s home Seattle area, bringing to about 2,736 lost jobs, or 6 percent of the vendor’s local workforce who have been pink-slipped so far.

In September, Microsoft fired 2,100 employees in the second stage of the layoff, including 747 workers from Washington, adding to the 1,351 jobs the vendor eliminated locally in its first round of layoffs. The company has said it intends to complete the layoffs within a year, so it is ahead of schedule in that regard. 

Of the planned 18,000 cuts, 12,500 came from employees Microsoft acquired as part of its acquisition of Nokia’s handset and services business. However, ZDNet reported that some former Nokia employees thought to be included in the large first wave of layoffs were instead retained but will be included in a smaller layoff slated for early next year.

Microsoft still intends to cut back by as much as 20 percent of its “contingent” or part-time employees as part of its overall restructuring.

The firings, Microsoft’s largest in its 39-year history, are far deeper than what most observers expected and nearly three times the company’s previous highwater mark for layoffs of 5,800 in 2009 at the global recession’s beginning. Microsoft said it will incur a $1.1 billion to $1.6 billion charge over the next year for severance pay and other costs associated with the layoffs.