Microsoft fyrer 3.000 ansatte i forretnings-divisioner verden over. Det er dermed den anden store fyringsrunde, der fejer over selskabet alene i år.
Fyringsrunden rammer også den danske forretning.
Microsoft fyrede også i januar efter, at det var blevet varslet, at selskabet for første gang nogensinde var nødt til at skære ned på medarbejderstaben.
Dengang lød meldingen fra Microsoft, at der skulle fyres i alt 5.000 ansatte inden sommeren 2010 - måske endda flere. Det svarer til omkring fem procent af medarbejderstaben, og målet var at spare spare halvanden milliard dollar - godt otte milliarder kroner - om året.
Dengang blev der fyret omkring 1.400 medarbejdere - inklusive omkring 75 ansatte i Microsofts danske udviklingsafdeling i Vedbæk nord for København.
Anden etape
Den nuværende fyringsrunde - hvor der altså bliver fyret 3.000 ansatte - er anden etape af den varslede plan.
Med dagens fyringsrunde når Microsoft næsten op på i alt 5.000 afskedigede medarbejdere.
Det er det kølige finansklima og afmatningen i den globale økonomi, der ligger til grund for ændringerne, lyder det fra Microsoft, der da ogsåer ramt af svagt salg til især erhvervslivet.
Topchef Steve Ballmer antyder i en e-mail til de ansatte, at der kan være flere fyringer i støbeskeen, hvis den økonomiske nedtur fortsætter.
"I takt med, at vi bevæger os fremad, vil vi fortsætte med at holde nøje øje med konsekvenserne af den økonomiske nedtur på selskabet. Vi er klar til at tage yderligere initiativer på vores omkostnings-struktur, hvis det bliver nødvendigt. Dette inkluderer yderligere job-reduktioner," skriver han.
Han skriver desuden, at Microsoft er "næsten" færdig med den varslede reduktion med tirsdagens fyringsrunde.
Læs mere på Computerworld.dk om konsekvenserne for den danske forretning.
Se hele Steve Ballmers mail til de ansatte
From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009
To: Microsoft - All Employees
Subject: Update: Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs
In January, in response to the global economic downturn, I announced our plan to adjust the company's cost structure through spending reductions and job eliminations.
Today, we are implementing the second phase of this plan.
This is difficult news to share. Because our success at Microsoft has always been the direct result of the talent, hard work, and commitment of our people, eliminating positions is hard.
Today's action includes positions in the United States and in a number of countries around the world. In the U.S., affected employees will be notified directly by their managers today.
In other countries, local leadership teams will provide more specific information about the impact to their organizations.
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.
For those of you directly affected by today's announcement, I want to thank you for your contribution to Microsoft and assure you that we will continue to provide support as we did during the previous job eliminations.
And for everyone across the company, I want to reemphasize how much I appreciate the way you have pulled together to help the company respond to this difficult economic environment.
There's no doubt that these are very challenging times. But together, we are making the right choices to ensure that we will continue to deliver great products and position ourselves for strong future growth and profitability.
Thank you for your continued hard work, commitment, and focus.
Steve
