https://www.financialexpress.com/trending/i-worked-for-microsoft-for-over-15-years-says-55-year-old-laid-off-employee-tech-giant-fires-40-more-people/3937648/
3 replies (most recent on top)
An age of being 55 does not factor into Satya’s plan. Your age is YOUR problem, not his. While he may be that old or older, he has more money and is the CEO, so age is not an issue for him. It’s just an issue for those that are NOT him. Any plans in motion to layoff people who just happen to be coincidentally “that age range”, will not change as again, it does not affect him.
If you are waiting the corp world’s heart to soften, it won’t. I myself am 58 and all under the same scrutiny.
Has it ever occurred to you that in addition to AI growth the master plan was to layoff in the US and replace hire in India to pay for it? All may be unfolding exactly as Satya wants. No surprises, no unexpected turns, no gotchas, just all according to plan.
- ‘My crime? Being over 55’: US influencer shares story of laid-off Microsoft employee
Microsoft layoffs 2025: Over 15,000 jobs cut this year, headcount remains unchanged at 228,000
Written by Arfa Javaid
Updated: August 6, 2025, 14:33 IST
Microsoft has laid off more than 15,000 employees this year, yet its overall headcount remains unchanged from last year at 228,000. This is because the company has continued hiring in other departments, even while conducting large-scale layoffs.
Microsoft began trimming its workforce in May 2025 by laying off over 6,000 employees. In July, it cut another 9,000 jobs. According to a recent state filing cited by Moneycontrol, Microsoft has let go of 40 more employees in Washington, bringing the total number of layoffs in the state this year to 3,160. These cuts have come even as the company continues to make major investments in its AI platform, Copilot.
US influencer Amanda Goodall claims she has been receiving numerous messages from affected Microsoft employees. On X (formerly Twitter), she wrote, “Still getting messages about Microsoft layoffs,” before sharing anonymous testimonials from those impacted.
One message said, “We were told not to post on LinkedIn. Not to say anything.”
Another shared, “I worked for Microsoft for 15+ years. My crime? Being over 55.”
A third wrote, “My COBRA quote was $1,600/month. I had to scramble for private insurance the same day.”
A fourth added, “They turned off the angry reaction in Xbox town halls after mass layoffs. The chat was a sea of sarcastic emojis.”
One former employee, posting on Reddit, claimed that Microsoft’s culture shifted significantly in response to its focus on AI. He said he joined the company three years ago, when people skills and technical understanding were highly valued. However, this changed in 2024 as AI became a major profit driver.
He said his manager began closely tracking how often he used AI tools, how many pull requests he was completing each week, and even encouraged him to give internal talks on his experience using AI as a developer. He personally found Microsoft Copilot to be underwhelming at the time but acknowledged its future potential.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella addressed the layoffs in an internal blog titled “Recommitting to our why, what, and how.” He described the job cuts as “among the most difficult” decisions the company has made and acknowledged the mixed signals the current environment sends.
“I feel the immense weight of the choices we’ve had to make,” Nadella wrote. “I also want to acknowledge the uncertainty and seeming incongruence of the times we’re in. By every objective measure, Microsoft is thriving—our market performance, strategic positioning, and growth all point up and to the right. We’re investing more in CapEx than ever before. Our overall headcount is relatively unchanged, and some of the talent and expertise in our industry and at Microsoft is being recognised and rewarded at levels never seen before. And yet, at the same time, we’ve undergone layoffs.”
According to a Moneycontrol report, Microsoft has poured $88 billion into AI infrastructure over the past year and is planning to invest another $30 billion by September 2025.
Amid criticism, a Microsoft spokesperson clarified that the layoffs are not related to the company’s use of H-1B visas. In a statement to CFO Dive, the company said, “Our H-1B applications are in no way related to the recent job eliminations, in part because employees on H-1Bs also lost their roles. In the past 12 months, 78 percent of the petitions we filed were extensions for existing employees and not new employees coming to the US.”
Still, the layoffs and H-1B filings have drawn political scrutiny. US Vice President JD Vance criticized the company last week, stating that tech companies should not lay off American workers and then seek foreign labor through visa programs.
“You see some Big Tech companies where they’ll lay off 9,000 workers, and then they’ll apply for a bunch of overseas visas. That displacement and that math worries me a bit,” Vance said. “I don’t want companies to fire 9,000 American workers and then say, ‘We can’t find workers here in America.’ That story doesn’t make sense.”
Has it ever occurred to you that in addition to AI growth the master plan was to layoff in the US and replace hire in India to pay for it? All may be unfolding exactly as Satya wants. No surprises, no unexpected turns, no gotchas, just all according to plan.