Remember when Microsoft first announced it was going to eliminate 5,000 jobs by June 2010? Well it looks like the second round of those lay offs are starting today by cutting 3.000 more of those 5,000 planned job cuts, and according to a memo by Steve Ballmer, there no ruling out the possibility of additional cuts.
"With this announcement, we are mostly but not all done with the planned 5,000 job eliminations by June 2010. We are moving quickly to reach this target in response to consistent feedback from our people and business groups that it"s important to make decisions and reduce uncertainty for employees as quickly as possible, and so that organizations can concentrate their efforts and resources on strategic objectives. As we move forward, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure including additional job eliminations.", says the memo sent out to all Microsoft employees.
While Microsoft officials did not say which departments were being hit, they did say that roughly half of the jobs eliminated were in the US. Even though the company is still eliminating jobs, they"re still hiring. In fact, they"re planning to hire 2,000 to 3,000 workers this year in their growing areas of focus.