A sign of hard times indeed: Microsoft, that monolith of enterprise software, joined the ranks of Google, Intel & others, & announced yesterday that the recession has necessitated cost-cutting measures, to include getting rid of 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months. Fourteen hundred employees were notified that they’re on The List.
The staff layoffs are in addition to cutting back on the use of contractors & putting construction projects on hold, measures that were announced earlier in the week.
For more than a month, rumors of job cuts have been swirling in the Puget Sound area, where Microsoft is one of the region’s largest & most generous employer. Salaries, benefits, perks—all outclass everything else in the area. The free sodas & juices alone run to $20M per year.
I can tell you that this week productivity has faltered & whispered conversations have increased, as folks speculated, repeated stories overheard & reconsidered whether they should redo the bathroom or just hang tight. The conversation-opening gambit yesterday was, “Well, my badge worked, so…”
There’s no telling what lies ahead—if you survived this round, there are more to come. & this in a company that actually turned a profit this past quarter.
Of course, it’s also the company that has been in a hiring frenzy that only slowed down recently. October’s new hires totaled 1,000; November’s were 380; & last month finally came down to 164.
Working in a place with the Sword of Damocles hanging over you is never good. It’ll be interesting to see how the Microsofties respond to the exhortations to innovate…or else.
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