New reports from the Seattle Times confirmed that Microsoft was entering its fifth consecutive month of layoffs, albeit on a smaller scale this time around. The Microsoft Redmond job cuts add up to around 42 workers, but this brings the number of cuts among Washington-based employees to over 3,200, and the total number of employees affected by layoffs since May 2025 to over 15,000. Microsoft continues down the warpath, making cuts both big and small across its organization for the fifth month in a row.
Why Are Microsoft’s Ongoing Layoffs So Noteworthy?
We have already seen reports of multiple employee protests at the organization over its business practices and political associations, which suggest the presence of considerable unrest among employees. Will the company continue to thrive, or will we see cracks appear in the facade as employees grow weary of the conditions of work? Layoff survivors face considerable guilt over the relief they feel at still having their jobs, and they remain under constant anxiety under the threat of additional layoffs.
2007: Foray into the Web, Windows 95, Windows XP, and Xbox
The Microsoft layoffs this time are minor, with only around 42 jobs being axed in Redmond. The link between the Microsoft job cuts and the company’s AI investments is clear to see, but the evidence doesn’t soften the blow for employees. Microsoft layoffs, for the fifth month in a row, add to the consistent anxiety that employees are operating under, fearful of what’s to come next. Austin, Texas-based cloud computing giant Oracle, which has an engineering hub in the Seattle area, laid off more than 260 Seattle-area employees this summer as part of companywide cuts. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella explained the job cuts in a memo to staff released on Microsoft’s corporate blog last month.
2011: Microsoft Azure, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Microsoft Stores
- Frequently criticized are the ease of use, robustness, and security of the company’s software.
- Microsoft reported its quarterly revenue results for the last part of its 2025 fiscal year in June, and they were certainly impressive.
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- Microsoft’s recent three-day RTO policy came with the assurance that the move was not directed at encouraging headcount reductions.
- The next version of Windows 11 has been ready and waiting in the wings for a handful of weeks, and now the company is giving it a formal go-ahead for launch.
During the first few waves of layoffs this year, Microsoft’s enormous financial success was the unmentioned elephant in the room. CEO Satya Nadella addressed that in July, after more than 15,000 employees were let go, acknowledging the “uncertainty and seeming incongruence” between historical success and massive job cuts. The company is on a streak of layoffs right now, continuing one of the largest runs in its history. Some waves have been large, with more than 6,000 employees let go in May and an additional 9,000 cut in July. Criticism of Microsoft has followed various aspects of its products and business practices. Frequently criticized are the ease of use, robustness, and security of the company’s software.
Microsoft’s job cuts have been linked to its AI ambitions, with an investment of $80 billion announced for 2025. The number of cuts mentioned in filings for June and August was far smaller, but the impact on employees has been consistently harsh. The Redmond job cuts at Microsoft appear targeted at fields like product management, engineering, and legal teams, so they are sufficiently spread out and indicate a desire for additional efficiency. In the middle of Microsoft’s waves of layoffs this summer the company reported record quarterly revenue and profits for the final methods of accounting three months of its 2025 fiscal year, which ended June 30. Microsoft’s logo with the tagline “Your potential. Our passion.”—below the main corporate name—is based on a slogan Microsoft used in 2008. At the same time, Microsoft has reported stellar earnings, greater than analyst expectations.
- According to the BI report, Microsoft is considering increasing the requirement for in-person work for employees based in its Redmond, Washington, headquarters to at least three days a week starting in January.
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- To get the update as soon as possible, make sure you have the “Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available” toggle selected in Windows Update, as that will prioritize your PC during the rollout.
- Below the still photos are all the articles that have been posted on RMN about this and other beheadings.
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Microsoft 365 empowers your organization to organize, and safely store files in OneDrive with intuitive and easy organizational tools. The Microsoft 365 Copilot app empowers your employees to do their best work with Copilot in the apps they use daily. If you’d like to download the enablement package update files to upgrade from version 24H2 to version 25H2 quickly, you can download the file corresponding to your architecture below. To get the update as soon as possible, make sure you have the “Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available” toggle selected in Windows Update, as that will prioritize your PC during the rollout. As usual, Microsoft is rolling out the update in waves, so it might not appear right away. If you don’t want to wait, our latest guide shows how you can force Windows 11 version 25H2 to update right now.
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As of today, Windows 11 version 25H2 is now rolling out, which means it will soon show up as an update available for you to download and install via Windows Update. Version 25H2 is a minor update, delivered as an enablement package and sits on top of version 24H2, meaning the download and install process should be very quick. The layoffs are separate from previous announcements, and the companywide impact was small, according to a Microsoft spokesperson.
According to a study conducted last year by Bamboo HR, return-to-office mandates were often layoffs in disguise, designed to pare down a workforce without conducting official job cuts. About a quarter of C-Suite executives surveyed wanted to inspire “voluntary turnover” with stricter return-to-office policies. It also bears mentioning that the drive for efficiency and growth does not appear to stem from a place of combating business struggles. Microsoft reported its quarterly revenue results for the last part of its 2025 fiscal year in June, and they were certainly impressive. With $76.4 billion in revenue and $27.2 billion in profit, the company’s financial performance has been nothing short of impressive, making the cuts all the more telling for employees.
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Since the pandemic, Microsoft has had a flexible work arrangement, allowing remote work as much as half of the time. According to the BI report, Microsoft is considering increasing the requirement for in-person work for employees based in its Redmond, Washington, headquarters to at least three days a week starting in January. The tech industry is highly competitive, and prolonged layoffs can deter top talent from joining or staying with Microsoft, despite the trend of layoffs across top-tier organizations. Layoffs are notorious for disrupting organizational culture, particularly at a company like Microsoft, which has historically prided itself on innovation and collaboration. The company has doubled down on how central AI is to its operations, even asking employees to utilize the tool sufficiently if they hope to get an A-plus on their performance reviews.
If it is a psyops,you run the risk of being infected with whatever ‘sickness’ they they have embedded in this video. Below the still photos are all the articles that have been posted on RMN about this and other beheadings. For the most current posts on Nick Berg and other decapitations and beheadings that are going on in the world, visit The Rumor Mill News Reading Room on a regular basis.
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In most cases, these fears are unfounded, and employees can eventually return to work with a clear head. Microsoft’s AI-motivated layoffs may be beneficial for the company’s expense and profit margins, but it is wearing employees down. All layoffs, big or small, affect employees in innumerable ways, from denting morale to cutting their careers short right when economic uncertainties are on the rise. Layoffs don’t just affect the employees who are cut, but they have a similar impact on those who are left behind as well.
People who use their products and services often end up becoming dependent on them, a process is known as vendor lock-in. As such, it needs subsidiaries present in whatever national markets it chooses to harvest. An example is Microsoft Canada, which it established in 1985.223 Other countries have similar installations, to funnel profits back up to Redmond and to distribute the dividends to the holders of MSFT stock. In April 2019, Microsoft reached a trillion-dollar market cap, becoming the third public U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion.
Nadella acknowledged the discrepancy between Microsoft’s “thriving” financials and his decision to still lay off staff. That also means version 25H2 doesn’t include any notable new changes or enhancements over version 24H2, because both releases are based on the same platform release and thus share the same security updates, bug fixes, and features. The only thing version 25H2 does that version 24H2 doesn’t is reset the support lifecycle clock. Microsoft is laying off 42 Redmond-based employees, continuing a months-long effort by the company to trim its workforce amid an artificial intelligence spending boom. From LinkedIn to Xbox, each segment of the company’s business has been affected by layoffs in 2025.