As per a Business Insider report, Microsoft is set to fire some employees as it plans to conduct multiple layoffs to get rid of ‘underperformers’ in the company.

According to the report, the layoffs will affect all company sectors, including the Security sector which is of great importance to Microsoft.

Furthermore, the report mentions that several of Microsoft’s competitors have the same company policies and ideologies so to keep pace with the current business trends, the company has enforced performance management and for the last few months managers have been evaluating the performance of employees up to the 80 level, which is one of its highest levels.

The report stated that the company’s spokesperson did confirm the job cuts, however, the number of employees that would be affected was not disclosed.

“Our aim and focus at Microsoft is to employ only high-performance talent,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying, “We constantly strive to ensure that the people under our employ are trained and developed, but when people fail to perform we then initiate appropriate actions.”

Multiple industry layoffs have taken place after 2023 including Microsoft which seems to be an ongoing trend in the tech field.

Microsoft’s Past Layoff Cycles

Microsoft laid off around a thousand employees in June, announced plans to shut down the popular Arkane Austin studio, and also terminated associated personnel in May of the year 2024. In July of the same year, they executed another round of layoffs.

The report states Microsoft has a total workforce of 228,000, and due to poor performance, people tend to resign, which Microsoft usually backfills. So, this cycle repeats with very few changes.