Microsoft layoffs rumor

[jon]

Isn't there a big employee meeting coming up? Those are for revving up all the Developers Developers Developers. It would destroy that meeting to have a big layoff at about the same time.

[WestSideBilly]

[deejayoh]

[Alan]

That 10% might have just been in that GM's org.

[evokanivo]

5-10% reduction in workforce can happen without layoffs. My team has already reduced by that much simply via not replacing typical losses that are due to attrition. When a team member leaves the company or moves to a different group, we don't replace them.

I'm not a manager, so I don't know the exact numbers in my group, but contractors represent about 5-10% of employees and their contracts have not been renewed. Hence, there are ways to make relatively large cuts without a big to-do or expensive severance packages.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[jon]

Maybe he meant a 10% cut relative to previously planned growth:

http://www.techflash.com/Report_Microso ... 74774.html

"The report says the company's real estate and facilities group was working under the assumption "that the company's work force would not grow for the next 2 1/2 years. Beyond then, the planners expected annual growth of 3 percent.""

More details at:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/ ... ion20.html

[buyStocks]

hmm,
Lets do the math from that article. Optimal low end of annual revenue was 67.3 billion bucks(earnings of 2.12 a share). Analyst estimating revenue report on thursday will only be 63.76 billion bucks (earnings 1.96 per share). That's a decrease of 3.5 billion bucks. According to the above article, looks like they are cutting costs by about $525 million with decreases real estate and traveling and expansion expenditures. Gee, I wonder what they're gonna do about the other 3 billion bucks in lost revenue (layoffs perhaps...)

[buyStocks]

We can even take the simple math further. Accoring to this article average compensation of microsoft employee in 2007 is $145,000: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/b ... erage.html

That seems high to me, so lets make it $110,000. If I cut 9000 microsoft employees I've swiftly dropped cost by a cool billion dollars.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[The Tim]

[rose-colored-coolaid]