Microsoft Corp. has apparently launched a new round of layoffs a month after it was reported that the company was preparing to lay off hundreds of employees from its Azure cloud business.

Geekwire reported Wednesday that the layoffs have affected multiple teams and geographies. Posts on LinkedIn from affected employees show that the layoffs have hit those in product and program management roles.

Officially, Microsoft has not announced a new round of layoffs. Instead, a spokesperson for Microsoft said that “organizational and workforce adjustments are a necessary and regular part of managing our business,” and that Microsoft “will continue to prioritize and invest in strategic growth areas for our future and in support of our customers and partners.”

The timing of the reported layoffs does not come as a surprise, as Microsoft ended its fiscal year on June 30 and has made layoffs in July, the start of its new fiscal year, in previous years. The new layoffs, whatever the number, are par for the course.

Although Microsoft may have previously laid off employees in July, the layoffs come after the company has already made extensive headcount cuts over the last two years.

In January last year, Microsoft announced that it would lay off about 10,000 employees, or 5% of its workforce, as part of an effort to reduce costs. Those cuts followed smaller rounds of layoffs in July and October of 2022.

In January this year, the company laid off 1,900 Activision and Xbox employees. Those layoffs, accounting for 9% of Microsoft’s gaming division, were directly related to its acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. in October for $68.7 billion.

Microsoft is not alone among big tech companies cutting staff this year. Google LLC laid off at least 200 employees on May 1, Cisco Systems Inc. announced plans to furlough thousands in February, and Dell Technologies Inc. announced that it had laid off 13,000 employees in March.

More recently, on July 3, enterprise software provider OpenText Corp. announced plans to cut 1,200 jobs as part of a business optimization plan.

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