Microsoft may be cutting even more jobs this week. On Monday, the company confirmed it had launched a "restructuring" of its Mixed Reality division but would not confirm how many team members were affected. Now, a new report claims Microsoft has cut at least hundreds of jobs from its Azure for Operations and Mission Engineering teams,
The report comes from Business Insider citing unnamed sources. The report claims one of the sources stated the job cuts affected as many as 1,500 Microsoft employees. As of this writing, Microsoft has not responded to requests for comment from Business Insider.
The Azure for Operations and Mission Engineering teams are both part of a larger division at Microsoft called Strategic Missions and Technologies. Formed in 2021, it brought a number of teams together in one unit, including Microsoft"s US government businesses, along with its quantum computing and space teams.
In January 2023, Microsoft announced that it would cut 10,000 jobs from the company, or about 5 percent of its total workforce at the time. In June 2023, the company confirmed it was cutting even more team members beyond the 10,000 employees it said it would cut but did not offer any info on the specific numbers.
Besides the confirmed cuts to the Mixed Reality division and the unconfirmed Azure for Operations and Mission Engineering layoffs, the gaming divisions at Microsoft have also suffered from job cuts in 2024. In January, the company confirmed it had laid off 1,900 workers in Microsoft Gaming, which affected 9 percent of that division"s team members.
In early May, Microsoft shut down three of its in-house game development studios from its Bethesda brand: Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog Games. It also merged another studio, Roundhouse Games, into the ZeniMax Online Studios team. The company did not offer specific numbers for how many team members were affected.