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Up to 70 Irish jobs are believed to be at risk, with Microsoft making workforce adjustments as it enters a new fiscal year.
Microsoft is making another round of staff cuts, with hundreds of layoffs expected to take place worldwide.
It is widely reported that these cuts are separate to the 10,000 global layoffs that Microsoft confirmed earlier this year. The new round of cuts come shortly after the tech giant entered its 2024 fiscal year. GeekWire reported that the layoffs will impact employees in customer service, support and sales roles.
A number of staff have confirmed on LinkedIn that they are part of the new wave of job cuts. While the total number has not been confirmed, Microsoft filed a notice yesterday that it would cut 276 staff in Washington, CNBC reports.
Irish staff are also affected, with up to 70 roles at risk of being lost, RTÉ reports. A company spokesperson told RTÉ that the latest cuts are related to workforce adjustments and that they are a necessary part of managing its business.
Microsoft employs around 3,500 people in Ireland – excluding those who work for LinkedIn, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2016 for $26bn. Following the announcement of 10,000 global layoffs in January, it was reported that roughly 180 Irish jobs were cut in the following months.
The company has made multiple rounds of layoffs since last year, similar to a number of global tech companies. Microsoft announced last October that it was cutting around 1,000 jobs because of “unfavourable foreign exchange rate movement” and extended production shutdowns in China.
That announcement came less than three months after Microsoft reported its slowest quarterly revenue growth since 2020.
The tech giant’s revenue has been on the rise globally since then, however. In April, Microsoft’s quarterly revenue jumped 7pc to almost $53bn compared to the corresponding period last year, beating Wall Street’s estimates.
The company’s CEO spoke about advanced AI models and “a new era of computing”, suggesting the company’s investment in ChatGPT and generative AI as the reason for the strong results.
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