Microsoft Layoff 3,000 Employees
30 October 2014 14:54 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Microsoft, on Wednesday, October 29, 2014, sacked 3,000 of its employees to complete its plan to reduce 18,000 employees or 14 percent of the company's total staff, which was announced in July.
The majority of the sacked 18,000 employees were in the phone handset division Microsoft acquired from Nokia earlier this year. Some 638 employees in Microsoft's head office in Washington were also fired.
"We've taken another step that will complete almost all the 18,000 [manpower] reductions announced in July," said a Microsoft spokesman as reported by Reuters on Wednesday. "The reductions happening today are spread across many different business units and many different countries."
After acquiring Nokia's devices and services for US$7.2 billion, the number of Microsoft employees swelled to 127,000 worldwide. The figure is larger than Apple's and Google's.
The swelling number made Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella decided to let go some of the company's employees, which was the first job cut by the company since 2009, when Microsoft cut around 5,800 employees, according to Bloomberg.
RINDU P. HESTYA | REUTERS
