Microsoft planning thousands of job cuts aimed at salespeople

Microsoft is planning to cut thousands of jobs, particularly in sales, as the tech giant streamlines its workforce amid increased investments in artificial intelligence, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The latest layoffs follow Microsoft’s previous round of job cuts in May, which affected about 6000 employees.

The tech giant has ramped up its investments in AI, aiming to solidify its leadership as companies across industries accelerate the integration of AI into their products and services to maintain a competitive edge.

Earlier this week, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that the rollout of generative AI and agents will reduce its total corporate workforce in the next few years.

Microsoft has planned a capital expenditure of US$80 billion ($123 billion) this fiscal year, with most of it aimed at expanding data centres to ease capacity bottlenecks for AI services.

The layoffs are expected to be announced early next month, following the end of the tech giant’s fiscal year, the report said.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The job cuts will not exclusively affect the sales teams, and the timing could still change, the report added.

Microsoft had 228,000 workers as of June last year.