Microsoft's 3rd layoff round hits employees in supply chain, Cloud, IoT biz

San Francisco, March 11

Microsoft has conducted a third round of job cuts that impacted employees in roles related to supply chain, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT).

According to CRN, the third wave of layoffs are part of the 10,000 job cuts announced by Microsoft earlier this year.

Job cuts were across various levels, functions, teams and geographies, the report said, quoting the company.

In Washington state, the tech giant recently sacked 689 employees, according to records.

In February, Microsoft informed Washington State that 617 employees were let go.

In the same month, the company notified the state of California that 108 employees were let go.

"In January, Microsoft informed Washington state that 878 employees were cut, bringing the total number of employees let go in the state to 2,184," the report mentioned.

According to a LinkedIn post by a Microsoft employee, the company has shut down its AI-powered automation effort Project Bonsai and laid off the team.

Another principal product manager, who worked for more than 18 years at Microsoft and led a team of product managers in Supply Chain Engineering, a part of the Cloud and AI group in Microsoft, wrote on LinkedIn that "a significant part of my group and I were let go".

Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella in January announced that the company will be "making changes that will result in the reduction of our overall workforce by 10,000 jobs through the end of FY23 Q3 (third quarter)".

Microsoft currently has more than 220,000 employees, and layoffs affected around 5 per cent of its workforce.