WASHINGTON — This story was initially published on MyNorthwest.com
More cuts are coming to Microsoft. The company reported it is planning to cut approximately 3% of its global workforce.
Microsoft stated the cuts are not related to performance, but instead an effort to reduce layers of management. Microsoft had 228,000 employees worldwide as of last June. While unconfirmed, this is gearing up to be the company’s biggest round of layoffs since 2023, when Microsoft let 10,000 employees go.
“We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.
There is no word on when the new layoffs will officially take place.
On Monday, Microsoft shares stopped trading at $449.26, the highest price for the company in 2025. They closed at a record $467.56 last July. Microsoft also produced better-than-expected results in its quarterly report last month.
This announcement follows another company, CrowdStrike—a cybersecurity software provider—deciding to lay off 5% of its workforce last week.
Microsoft scales back on AI
After 10 consecutive quarters of increasing its spending on artificial intelligence (AI), Microsoft decided to slightly pull back its financial commitment to the burgeoning technology last month.
According to a financial results report released earlier this week, Microsoft spent approximately $1 billion less on AI in the first three months of 2025 than it did in the previous quarter. Still, Microsoft invested $21.4 billion into AI over the past three months.
Microsoft was on pace to spend more than $85 billion on AI during the current fiscal year, before slightly pulling back.
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