Microsoft is laying off employees today, but no comment has yet been released by the company.
The layoff possibility was described in a TechFlash article posted on Tuesday by Todd Bishop. He subsequently wrote today that the job cuts are happening now and numbering in "the hundreds" worldwide.
Layoffs apparently are happening in Microsoft's Central Marketing Group, Enterprise and Partner Group and Small and Medium Business Sales Group, according to reader comments in the Mini-Microsoft blog. The blog is anonymously written but it maintains a rather ruthless motto for a blog ostensibly written by Microsoft employees: "Let's slim down Microsoft into a lean, mean, efficient customer pleasing profit making machine!"
Last calendar year, Microsoft cut or moved more than 5,000 employees, signaling a new trend for a company that had previously avoided mass company-wide layoffs. The layoffs come just in time for Microsoft's fourth-quarter 2010 earnings report, scheduled to be publicized on July 22. Microsoft entered its 2011 fiscal year on July 1, 2009.
According to Microsoft stats updated on April 20, 2010, Microsoft has 88,180 employees globally, 55,363 employees in the United States and 39,738 employees in Washington State.
Possibly, the employee cuts will be disclosed in Microsoft's upcoming Q4 earnings report. In the past, Microsoft has lessened the cuts by hiring the laid-off employees in other company positions.