Yep, Microsoft confirms a new round of layoffs in 2018... And this is a different one...
By Ashley Stewart – Staff Writer, Puget Sound Business Journal
Jan 24, 2018, 1:43pm PST
Microsoft Corp. laid off an undisclosed number of employees, the Redmond-based company confirmed to the Puget Sound Business Journal on Wednesday.
A company spokesperson declined to provide more information, but said the cuts are unrelated to the layoffs the Business Journal previously reported would happen in the Portland area this month.
IT industry website Petri.com said the most recent changes affect Microsoft's applications teams, including mixed reality and Windows 10. The Business Journal was unable to independently verify Petri.com's report.
Microsoft completed a major shift of the company's sales organization last summer, realigning around its booming cloud business. Microsoft cut thousands of jobs – including as many as 500 in the Puget Sound region – and Chief Information Officer Jim DuBois left the company.
The company at first said the layoffs would be contained to sales roles, but later cut 124 mostly engineering roles and closed a Portland-area office where it built the Surface Hub.
Layoffs aren't always a bad sign, Becker Capital's Microsoft analyst Sid Parakh told the Business Journal last year. Microsoft needed the reorganization to compete with cloud competitors including Amazon Web Services, he said.