In May, Microsoft Might Announce Further Layoffs as Part of its Restructuring

A media outlet has revealed that Microsoft is considering laying off another group of employees as early as May in an effort to further streamline its organisational structure. The tech firm wants to increase the proportion of engineers to non-technical employees in project teams. Therefore, it is anticipated that the projected layoffs will target middle management positions. The change is in line with a similar initiative by Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, who has supported a more lean organisational structure throughout the business. The report claims that Microsoft is looking into ways to give managers more "span of control", which would allow them to supervise a greater number of workers. According to the report, a sizable percentage of employees may be impacted by the cuts, while the precise number of possible job losses is unknown.

Layoffs Becoming a Latest Trend in Global Tech World

The strategy of layoffs is consistent with a larger trend in the technology sector. Businesses like Google and Amazon have also been trying to improve team structures by increasing the proportion of supervisors to individual contributors. As part of a company-wide efficiency drive, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in December that vice president and manager positions would be cut by 10%. According to reports, Microsoft is concentrating on lowering the "PM ratio"—the proportion of product or program managers to engineers—across all teams. This ratio, which measures the percentage of engineers to non-builders at Amazon, is called the "Builder Ratio". According to reports, Charlie Bell, the security chief at Microsoft and a former high-ranking official at Amazon, is pursuing similar objectives within the company. The possible reorganisation would come after Microsoft announced that it had slashed almost 2,000 jobs earlier this year, citing the departure of underperforming workers as the reason. Employees who scored lower on the company's "ManageRewards slider" performance rating system may also be the focus of the next round.

AI Also Becoming a Larger Threat

Proponents of leaner structures point out that the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) at all stages of product development is also driving this trend. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman hinted that AI may eventually eliminate the need for software engineers entirely. Altman hinted that in future, smaller and more efficient teams may eventually replace bigger developer workforces. He stated, "Each software engineer will just do much, much more for a while." Being one of the top tech businesses in the world, Microsoft's organisational changes could be a hint of things to come for other tech companies trying to strike a balance between automation, innovation, and staff efficiency.