Microsoft Announces Record 18,000 Layoffs, Three Time More Than Expected

Microsoft

–  Microsoft Announces Record 18,000 Layoffs, Three Time More Than Expected (ZeroHedge, July 17, 2014):

While the news was reported earlier this week, it is perhaps notable that what was once considered the leading US tech company has also succumbed to the great “jobless” US recovery (in which the US economy is somehow adding 200K+ jobs every month even as it is firing millions). Furthermore, what was supposed to be 6,000 layoffs has just tripled to 18,000, which also happens to be the largest round of layoffs in MSFT history, surpassing the previous record of 5,800 set back in 2009.

From the PR:

Microsoft Corp. today announced a restructuring plan to simplify its operations and align the recently acquired Nokia Devices and Services business with the company’s overall strategy.

These steps will result in the elimination of up to 18,000 positions over the next year. Of the total, about 12,500 professional and factory positions will be eliminated through synergies and strategic alignment of the Nokia Devices and Services business acquired by Microsoft on April 25.

The actions associated with the plan are expected to be substantially complete by Dec. 31, 2014, and fully completed by June 30, 2015.

The company expects to incur pre-tax charges of $1.1 billion to $1.6 billion over the next four quarters, including $750 million to $800 million for severance and related benefit costs, and $350 million to $800 million of asset-related charges.

If only Tim Geithner had qualified his “Welcome to the Recovery” August 2010, NYT oped a little bit better, none of this would have been a surprise. Actually, it isn’t a surprise at all. And now, back to MSFT stock which surges on the news and lifts the market to recorder highs even as thousands more end up on the street, which has largely been the whole story of the “recovery” to date.

2 thoughts on “Microsoft Announces Record 18,000 Layoffs, Three Time More Than Expected”

  1. This is another of many reasons why big corporations should not be allowed to join together forming endless monopolies. When they have monopolies, there is no more competition, and they eat the workers alive.
    When I see college graduates sending out hundreds of resumes a week for over a year to get a minimum wage job, I know we are finished.
    When I graduated, many decades ago, I had a good paying job within a month, and my income continued to go up. Life was good for many years. Corporations used to treat their workers with respect, and made it nice to work there. That started changing around the late 1990s, early 2000s…….then, the brutal cuts started coming. I worked in employment, and I saw it first hand.
    They kept me around because I could read, and understood what they were seeking in different candidate. But, soon, the wonderful pay was gone, and it got harder and harder to survive. It became a brutal place, and I had never really seen that. I had experienced recessions, but not permanent depressions such as we have suffered under since 2007-08.
    There has been no recovery. Allowing Microsoft to acquire a major cell phone company, gives them a monopoly. This is so wrong. Unless you can find an entirely new field the greedy guts have not yet grabbed, there is nothing but shit jobs with corporate futures.
    I knew a guy who worked at IBM in the early days…….they sang a company song every morning. I would not be surprised if these creeps tried it……but IBM was good to their workers, they paid them well, and the benefits were outstanding. The early workers retired with good benefits and retirement. Today’s workers have none of that. What they will do, I don’t know.
    The world has changed completely. I no longer recognize it. I am a relic of a world long gone…….

    Reply
  2. Absolutely right Marilyn.

    Global Corporate power is power over its factors of production…labour, suppliers, marketing and finance.

    Equally the power it has over media is potentally devastating, as with Monsatan, Pfizer, Astra Zeneca, GSK, P&G and so on.

    They, with their banksters control the world markets, create fashions for the morons and promote moronity.

    Should factors create negative forecasts, the factors of production are sacrificial.

    In my day, when things went a bit shitty, we employed our men to paint the factory & machinery.

    Better to look after staff.

    Not any more, it seems.

    Reply

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