Microsoft is laying off more than 6,000 employees (2025)

Microsoft employees have faced a series of layoffs over the past year.

Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it’s laying off more than 6,000 employees, around three percent of the company’s entire workforce. These are the biggest job cuts at Microsoft since it laid off 10,000 employees in 2023, and will impact employees across Microsoft’s businesses.

“We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” says Microsoft spokesperson Pete Wootton in a statement to The Verge.

I understand that the job cuts will impact all levels at Microsoft, including Microsoft-owned LinkedIn and some international offices. The cuts come just weeks after Microsoft CFO Amy Hood hinted at reducing the company’s management layers. “We continue to focus on building high-performing teams and increasing our agility by reducing layers with fewer managers,” said Hood on April 30th. Microsoft also started ”performance-based” cuts earlier this year, which have targeted hundreds of employees.

Microsoft also laid off 650 more Xbox employees in September, as part of a restructuring related to the company’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Microsoft also cut around 1,000 employees from its HoloLens and Azure cloud teams in June.