Expected sales layoffs at Microsoft to begin today

Microsoft’s recently rumored restructuring is said to be underway according to a report from Business Insider, who used references to several anonymous chats found on the app Blind.

While Business Insider does not have verified access to the company managed chat app Blind, chatter about conference room bookings and schedules has surfaced from the more than 25,000 user base over at Microsoft. Based on the murmurs it’s shaping up to look as though layoffs are in Microsoft’s near future, starting today.

On Monday, a company memo was released, preparing some employees for a massive shift in the company’s focus on the sale, support, and maintenance of commercial and consumer sale of software. However, there has been no number attached to how many could be released during this shift, and today’s chatter on Blind has yet to crystallize the potential. Fortunately, as Business Insider and All About Microsoft has reported, not everyone scheduled for meetings today will be let go. Some of Microsoft’s efforts in the reorganization of its sales teams will result in several positions being shifted, refocused or combined.

As history has shown, Microsoft tends to shed jobs in the month of July , the start of the fiscal year, as proven with the several rounds of cuts that came from the failed Nokia acquisition as well as dumping some marketing jobs the following years. With it being July 6, 2017, the company is in line, historically, to do another round of massive layoffs.

Microsoft has not confirmed or denied the potential for massive cuts, but with 52,000 global sales and marketing positions worldwide, it seems reasonable that the company would be looking to trim that number quite a bit.

Update: Microsoft is said to be laying off up 3,000 sales employees with a majority of the positions coming from international offices according to  CNBC.