Microsoft is to cut around 9,000 jobs worldwide in the latest round of staff cuts as the US technology company looks to reduce costs.
It is understood the losses will impact up to 4% of its total workforce and it is thought the cuts will impact different teams and country operations as part of efforts to cut layers of management.
A spokesperson for Microsoft Ireland said the tech giant is continuing to “implement organisational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace.”
However, the company declined to comment on what impact today’s announcement will have on Microsoft’s Irish operations, where it has some 6,000 workers.
The Department of Enterprise confirmed it received a collective redundancy notification from Microsoft on 2 July.
A spokesperson for the Department said any further queries should be directed to the company.
Under Irish law, employers proposing a collective redundancy must notify the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment at least 30 days before the first redundancy occurs.
Given the number of people working in its Irish operations, the move indicates that Microsoft is planning to make at least 30 employees redundant.
Microsoft employs more than 4,000 people in Ireland across software development, engineering, data centres, finance, operations, and sales and marketing services.
In November of last year, it announced the creation of 550 engineering and research and development jobs in its Dublin office.
Microsoft also owns LinkedIn, which employs more than 2,000 people in Ireland, bringing Microsoft’s total Irish-based headcount to over 6,000 people.
Today’s move represents the third round of cuts this year.
The company already announced it was reducing the number of employees by around 6,000 roles in May and it shed 1,000 in January.
In early 2023, the company also cut 10,000 jobs, amid a move in the wider tech sector to scale back expansion during the pandemic.
Microsoft employed 228,000 full-time workers as of last June, the last time it reported its annual headcount.
Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke has said that he will be liaising closely with Microsoft over the coming hours and supporting any employees who are made redundant.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Drivetime programme, he said that from his perspective, the jobs created by the company’s Research Development and Innovation project will significantly outweigh the loss here.
“What I would say is that, in an economy where we’ve about 2.81 million people employed at the moment, which is an all-time record… There is a significant amount of churn in the IT sector,” he said.
Regarding the number of redundancies which may be made in Ireland, Mr Burke said that the company will disclose numbers “in due course”.
“It’s currently meeting with employees that are affected in a town hall style, so that has to conclude first before I’m actually formally notified of what the numbers are going to be.”
