this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2025
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[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Former MS employee here. One of the first layoffs I'm aware of was within a year after I quit the company. I heard they were streamlining the organization and clearing out "deadwood". One of my managers there had been a complete drone - in six months he had given me close to ZERO work to do - maybe 3 weeks worth, max. I figured he finally would have been let go, but nope... he was still there, no doubt practicing his excellence as before. What a zoo.

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 52 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Unidentified sources who spoke to BI claimed Microsoft would likely backfill the jobs cut this month, meaning there wouldn't be much of a reduction in overall headcount. Microsoft confirmed this to be the case.

This sounds more like a mass firing than layoffs, but I guess that's semantics.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 44 points 2 days ago (3 children)

This sounds like the Circuit City paradigm, which is to fire all your expensive experienced workers and try to fill their roles with fresh-faced grads or, more likely, H1B people from India at the absolute minimum pay scale.

And we saw how that worked for Circuit City.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 days ago

I wonder if that's why Microsoft's recent products are, you know, the way they are.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

To be fair Microsoft sells flushed out products and their only innovation is worthless, so they don't really need talkent.

[–] bamboo@lemm.ee 2 points 21 hours ago

Consumer side perhaps there is little desired innovation from MS, but most of their sales are enterprise and cloud, the last of which is a rapidly evolving market where talent can be put to good use.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 45 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They do these "layoffs" for performative theater...

US has no restrictions on these layoffs, so they can just rehire. This is anti labour practice.

Big accounting firms don't even pretend anymore, they just lay people off then hire a new class as they are doing these layoffs lol

[–] lobut@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 days ago (2 children)

So like, to impress their shareholders that they're cutting the fat? Aren't they going to lose time retraining?

Or do you mean by hiring a new class, like they're getting rid of workers for cheaper one?

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 18 points 2 days ago

Big accounting firms churning people because they don't care, their clients pay for any inefficiency. And the system is set up that firm makes their money 32 billable hours per week, they get these idiots do 60 that's either gravy or uncollected bills at worst.

Also, yeah system is a pyramid, so you need large base to support the parasite at the top.

They are running into issues now since work is getting rather complex and they need to maintain a lot of managers who actually know how do the job. These people command premium and job hop to get good salary. Firms hate these people. Fake promises of partnership don't work no more.

Switch jobs every few years to get that 20% wage increase they deny you.

Microsoft is a mega corp they do this to lesser extent, they want everybody to remember that they can be layoffs.

Other tech is doing this too now, they looking to suppress wages of developers specifically.

Issue is that we do have excess delovepers due to decade long shill campaign, other professionals are in short supply esp competent mid level ie people who actually make shot happen. Hence why tech layoffs outside of developers is idiotic practice. But this ain't about the money, this about sending the message.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 5 points 1 day ago

It is a combination of the following: they would rather take a chance on a new employee than a poorly trained existing employee; they need to keep the ability to train people by constantly needing to train people; it keeps the existing workers on their toes.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 27 points 2 days ago

Microsoft has been infamous for stack-ranking for decades now.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

Enshittification isn’t just for the online world!

[–] FeloniousPunk@lemmy.today 7 points 2 days ago

Gotta pay for those skyrocketing AI server bills somehow