New York— Witnessing a steeply declining economy, a layoff is not a surprise. But a layoff of 15,000 people and that too from Microsoft, is surely surprising. Unconfirmed vague rumors of huge Microsoft layoffs have gathered momentum with one site making specific claims. The latest to stake the claim on the possibility of layoffs at the software giant is the blog Fudzilla, which puts the number of job cuts at 15,000, or nearly 17 percent of Microsoft’s worldwide operations.
That is the latest buzz about potential Microsoft layoffs. While rumors have been swirling of job losses for several weeks, there has not been a great deal of detail to the gossip. Earlier reports only described that as many as 10% could get the axe, and that Wall Street would see that as “healthy,” according to Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Brad Reback.
However, the news site Fudzilla now says, not only is a layoff a done deal, it will occur on January 15th, and encompass 15,000 employees, which would be about 16.5% of Microsoft’s 91,000 employees, and it claims that this specific details which come from Microsoft employees:
Currently Microsoft employs about 90,000 people across the world and from what we are hearing; some 15,000 of those are expected to be giving marching orders come January 15th. That is almost 17 percent of Microsoft’s total work force, not exactly a small number.
Fudzilla believes the major hit would be for the MSN unit, where Yusuf Mehdi recently took over as marketing chief while the company continued to look for an executive to run its overall online services group, which makes sense if you think about the struggles Microsoft is having against Google. And, the January 15 date is a week prior to Microsoft’s second-quarter earnings report, scheduled for January 22.
What is more interesting is that another blog, Mini-Microsoft brought up the same date, Jan. 15th, earlier. It has published a long list of quotes, off the record comments and other insider info that indicates layoffs may be happening — or not.
So far, we have not managed to confirm what departments or regions will be hit the worst, but we are hearing that MSN might be carrying the brunt of the layoffs. We are also hearing rumors about the possibility of somewhat larger staff cuts at Microsoft EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).
A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment when asked about imminent layoffs, so nothing is concretely confirmed yet.
But frankly speaking, given the economic circumstances, one does not really need any inside sources to work out that Microsoft layoffs are a possibility. And, if it would not be surprising, first in line may probably be the person responsible for making Zunes work, given the epic failure of the Zune last night.
That said; Microsoft is unquestionably tightening its belt at the moment. The Seattle Times reports that the MSN Homepages division has just cancelled the contracts of 180 outside contractors.