Microsoft is looking to cut 7,800 employees – mostly in its mobile business – as it continues its restructuring. The job cuts will be in addition to the 18,000 staff the company said it would let go about a year ago.
In addition, Redmond will be taking a $7.6 billion impairment charge on its acquisition of Nokia’s handset business in 2014 and between $750 million and $850 million in restructuring charges.
Microsoft had over 118,000 employees globally at the end of March.
The move follows on from the the “tough choices” the company would have to make in areas where things are not working that CEO Satya Nadella warned of in an e-mail to employees in late June.
The company acquired Nokia’s flagging smartphone operations last year and, despite rumours that it was planning to sell it off, won’t be doing so given the importance of mobile services to its plans.
In a bid to refocus on its core business, Microsoft already handed off its display advertising business to AOL in nine markets. It also sold last month its Bing Maps street-image mapping operation to Uber Technologies, a deal that involved the transfer of about 100 employees working on image collection and data analysis.
IDG News Service
Ltd
