Microsoft is preparing to lay off as many as thousands of staff in multiple divisions starting as soon as Wednesday, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. The percentage of staff that would be impacted couldn’t be learned. Sky News earlier reported that 5% of the enterprise software company’s roughly 220,000 or so employees could be cut.
Among the new cuts will be software engineering teams as well as teams within a group led by executive Omar Abbosh that help Microsoft’s sales teams pitch customers on Azure cloud services, this person said. Teams that don’t generate revenue or whose roles don’t carry specific sales quotas are especially vulnerable, the person said. Some of the roles Microsoft is eliminating are expected to be outsourced to consultants that work with the company.