trunkswd on 03 July 2025
Microsoft only did one major layoffs before Satya Nadella became CEO and that was 1,400 in January 2009 then 3,600 over the course of 18 months after that. That is a drop in the bucket compared to the layoffs in recent years.
Layoffs under Satya:
- 2014 - 18,000 / 14% of total workforce
- July 2022 - Just over 1,000 / Under 1%
- October 2022 - Nearly 1,000 / Under 0.5%
- January 2023 - 10,000 / 5%
- March 2023 - 689 in Seattle
- May 2023 - 716 at LinkedIn
- September 2023 - 276 - Mainly customer support and sales
- October 2023 - 668 at LinkedIn
- January 2024 - 1,900 from gaming / ~8% of gaming division
- May 2024 - Unknown numbers - Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog Games shutdown / Roundhouse Studios merged into ZeniMax Online Studios
- Summer 2024 - 1,000 - Mainly Azure division
- September 2024 - 650 from Xbox - Mainly in corporate and support
- January/February 2025 - 2,000 that were "underperforming"
- July 2025 - 9,000 / 4% of total workforce
As you can see layoffs started off slow in 2022 then quickly ramped up.
Total per year:
- 2014 - 18,000
- 2022 - 2,000
- 2023 - 12,349
- 2024 - 3,550 + unknown number when studios were shutdown
- 2025 - 11,000
VGChartz Sales Analyst and Writer - William D'Angelo - I stream on Twitch and have my own YouTube channel discussing gaming sales and news. Follow me on Bluesky.
I post and adjust the VGChartz hardware estimates, with help from Machina.
Writer of the Sales Comparison | Monthly Hardware Breakdown | Monthly Sales Analysis | Marketshare Features, as well as daily news on the Video Game Industry.
