Microsoft is cutting about 2.1% of its workforce, or roughly 4,800 jobs, the latest in a wave of tech layoffs as the Windows maker spends heavily on AI infrastructure and uses the technology to improve efficiency across its business.<\/p>\n
Big Tech’s historic AI outlays, set to top $700 billion this year, are piling pressure on companies to show returns from the technology and offset the rising cost of rolling it out across their businesses.<\/p>\n
Amazon and Meta Platforms have also laid off thousands of employees this year.<\/p>\n
Microsoft announced the cuts today following a rough stretch, with its shares falling nearly 23% in the first six months of 2026, their worst first-half performance since 2022.<\/p>\n
The software giant earlier this year offered voluntary buyouts to about 7% of its US workforce, or about 9,000 employees. Microsoft often trims jobs near the end of its fiscal year in June as it sets spending plans for the new year.<\/p>\n
The company had roughly 228,000 full-time employees as of June 30, 2025, according to an SEC filing last year.<\/p>\n
Booming AI demand has powered growth at Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing business, which was the exclusive seller of OpenAI’s models until April, but the mounting cost of building data centres to run those services is squeezing its cash flows.<\/p>\n
The company, expected to report results later this month, had in April forecast quarterly Azure sales above Wall Street estimates, but also issued a $190 billion spending projection for 2026 that massively surpassed expectations.<\/p>\n
AI tools that can increasingly automate routine business tasks have also emerged as a threat to its lucrative software business, while a surge in memory chip prices driven by data centre demand has forced Microsoft to raise Xbox console prices at a time when demand for the console was already soft.<\/p>\n
The gaming division’s new head, Asha Sharma, said last month the business needed a “reset” and that its profit margin had declined to 3%, forcing a restructuring that could include potential M&A.<\/p>\n
“Excluding Activision Blizzard King, over the past five years, we have spent over $20 billion on ongoing investments in our content, platform and hardware subsidy, but our annual revenue has declined nearly half a billion during that time,” she said in an outspoken memo to employees published on Microsoft’s website. “Going forward, this cannot continue.”<\/p>\n
The company is considering options for the Xbox gaming unit, including a potential spinoff or restructuring as a wholly owned subsidiary, the Information reported last month.<\/p>\n
It is not yet known what impact the job cuts will have on Microsoft’s Irish operation.<\/p>\n
The company employs around 6,000 people in Ireland, 4,000 directly and another 2,000 at LinkedIn, which it also owns.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Microsoft Ireland said the company would not be giving a regional breakdown of where the job losses will occur.<\/p>\n
Additional reporting by Brian O’Donovan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft is cutting about 2.1% of its workforce, or roughly 4,800 jobs, the latest in a wave of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-535991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}