Microsoft's latest round of job cuts hits 276 employees
New owners of Evernote also cut majority of existing staff
Microsoft has announced another round of job cuts that will impact multiple positions within customer service, support, and sales departments.
The latest redundancies are separate from the 10,000 job cuts announced by Microsoft in January.
According to a recent filing with the Washington state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) system, Microsoft has reported a total of 276 job cuts. 210 of these are expected to take place at the company's locations in Redmond, and Bellevue while the remaining 66 job cuts will affect remote positions.
GeekWire was the first to report on the most recent job cuts on Monday.
Salespeople and customer success representatives took to social networks to share messages announcing that they had been made redundant from their positions.
According to The Register, Microsoft employees from different parts of the world have posted #OpenToWork status notices on LinkedIn. They came from multiple US states including Arizona, Texas, Florida, Philadelphia, Illinois, and Michigan, as well as locations as far as Canada and Denmark. The majority of these notices seem to be from individuals working in sales, support, and customer roles.
In a statement to GeekWire, the company acknowledged the situation, emphasising that organisational and workforce adjustments are integral and regular part of their business management.
"We will continue to prioritize and invest in strategic growth areas for our future and in support of our customers and partners," the company said.
In recent months, Microsoft has indicated that clients are actively seeking methods to reduce costs on their cloud computing expenses.
It is not uncommon for Microsoft to make decisions regarding the restructuring of certain business aspects as it enters a new fiscal year on 1st July. The company also made a limited number of cuts during the same period last year. At that time, it said that the decision was unrelated to concerns about a recession.
Earlier this year, in a blog post, Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, highlighted the company's continued dedication to hiring in key strategic domains.
The CEO reportedly said in a recent internal document that the company hoped to achieve annual returns exceeding 10% for shareholders by 2030.
For the third quarter of Microsoft's fiscal year 2023, which concluded on 31st March, the company reported a net profit of $18.29 billion, showing an increase from the previous year's $16.72 billion.
Revenue also grew, rising from $49.36 billion to $52.85 billion, although this growth is slower when compared to previous quarters.
Evernote layoffs
As part of its plans to transition and centralise operations in Europe, Bending Spoons, the new corporate parent of Evernote, has laid off a majority of Evernote's staff.
Luca Ferrari, CEO of Bending Spoons, told SFGate that this move is expected to bring about a substantial improvement in operational efficiency "that will come as a consequence of centralising operations in Europe."
Consequently, the majority of Evernote's workforce in the San Francisco Bay area and Chile has been made redudnant, and the offices in these locations will be permanently closed.
Bending Spoons acquired Evernote in November 2022 with the intention of leveraging its expertise in app development and proprietary technologies to enhance Evernote's feature set. In February, Bending Spoons made the decision to reduce its workforce by cutting 129 jobs.
During that time, a spokesperson from Bending Spoons mentioned that the company's lack of profitability was deemed unsustainable in the long term.
Bending Spoons announced last year that it had achieved an annual revenue exceeding $100 million.
"Our plans for Evernote are as ambitious as ever," Ferrari said.
"Going forward, a growing, dedicated team based in Europe will continue to assume ownership of the Evernote product," he added.
In a supportive measure, the company has announced that employees affected by the redundancies will receive several benefits. These include 16 weeks of salary and a prorated performance bonus, as well as up to one year of health insurance coverage and visa support.