Technology company, Microsoft, will announce layoffs on
Wednesday, which will reduce its workforce by at least 1%, according to
Bloomberg. However, the layoffs in the United States-based company, which
employs more than 220,000 people, could be much wider and reduce its workforce
by up to 5%, according to Sky News.
The layoffs come a couple of weeks after Microsoft CEO,
Satya Nadella, said in an interview with CNBC that the company is not immune to
the changes driving the world economy. He added that the company must ensure
that its expenses are in line with its revenue growth. "The next two years
are probably going to be the most challenging," said Nadella. "We did
have a lot of acceleration during the pandemic, and there's some normalization
of that demand. And on top of it, there is a real recession in some parts of
the world."
Several other large technology companies have also slashed
their workforce in the past few months, amid fears of a global recession. On
January 5, e-commerce company Amazon announced it would lay off more than
18,000 employees. In November, the online retail giant announced 10,000
layoffs.
Social media company Twitter laid off 50% of its workers
worldwide in November, while Meta also fired 11,000 employees during the same
month. The layoffs come amidst an increase in global unemployment, as projected
by a report released by the International Labour Organization on Monday. The
United Nations agency predicted global unemployment will increase by 30 lakh to
208 crore in 2023, pushing the joblessness rate to 5.8%.
The decrease in employment rate has been attributed to
several factors such as Covid-19, inflation, rising cost-of-living, and
geopolitical crises in Ukraine.