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Lest anyone thought Microsoft was kidding about slashing its workforce by 5,000 when first announced a year ago, the Redmond outfit has met its goal, and well ahead of its self-imposed June 2010 deadline.
Steve Ballmer's plan for mass layoffs was the first in the company's history, and it has already handed out 5,300 pink slips, or 300 more than originally announced. About 800 positions were eliminated in the company's fiscal second quarter ended December 31, 2009, with Microsoft reporting it had paid $59 million in severance pay related to those layoffs.
When Ballmer first announced the cuts in January, 2009, he said they would continue over the next 18 months and might reach as high as 5,000. With five more months still left to go, Microsoft has overshot its goal by 300. From a bean counting perspective, the layoffs have been a success, helping Microsoft report a record $19 billion revenue in the last quarter.
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Comments are closed on this article
fullur
February 04, 2010 at 6:36am
How does firing people increase revenue? I can see it increasing profit, but I do not understand how it would increase the total amount of money flowing through the company's hands... (revenue) Am I missing something?
JohnP
February 03, 2010 at 10:59am
I love the term "layoff" instead of "fired". Layoff means to temporarily lay off some of the workforce and rehire them when business picks up. What companies are actually doing is firing them while giving a bribe ("severance package") so they do not sue.
So profits are up are they? Sure, you get rid of a bunch of people and you do not have to pay them any more! So it makes the shareholders happy. On the other hand, a company like Microsoft is ALL about having talented people, it is their ONLY true asset. So you fire folks and the company suffers long term. There is no "trimming of the fat", the company WILL suffer in the months and years to come.
My company started a modest layoff when it was at 43,000 in 2000. Well, here it is in 2010 and the company has only 15,000 people left (I was fired in 2004). This has been just to keep the stock at the same price for all these years. Whole products have disappeared or been sold off. It when they started firing the salesmen wholesale that I knew the company was in bad shape.
Sebie Kay
February 03, 2010 at 10:40am
I wonder what positions were cut? Were they simply trimming the fat that they had added over the years (laying off 2 out of every 5 'consultants'), or were the serious jobs cuts (such as laying off 4 out of 5 programmers). It could simply be trimming fat that wasn't needed in the first place. The the worse case scenario would be if these were serious jobs that were laid off.. just to out source them to another country!
Anyone have any idea on positions that were cut, and if they did any outsourcing to those positions?
-=Do unto others... THEN RUN!!=-
nekollx
February 03, 2010 at 9:48am
Um Gratz?
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