The layoff spree at Microsoft continues and is now affecting its international branches. The tech giant had announced earlier in the year that it would be laying off 10,000 employees before the end of the third quarter of 2023. This round of layoffs will reduce the company’s general workforce by 5%. The company announced the layoffs in a filing with the United State Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The business stated that it would continue to fill “important positions” during this time.
Kenyan employees are the latest employees to be laid off by Microsoft. Edward Ochieng, the chief technology officer of the Kenyan software development firm Sklylab Systems, said there was an ongoing layoff at the country’s Microsoft Africa Development Centre (ADC).
The African Development Centre is a Microsoft initiative representing the tech giant’s engineering offices in Africa, currently in Nairobi, Kenya, and Lagos, Nigeria. The Kenyan office was opened in 2019. The company has invested over $100 million in the ADC to help develop African talent.
A few employees have taken to their social media accounts to confirm that they were laid off. Although most expected this to be a happier response to the company’s announcement in January, they still feel affected by this decision, as Kipkorir Arap, one of the affected employees, shared on his LinkedIn account, saying, “I was informed last Monday that Microsoft had made my role redundant.”
According to a filing with the SEC, Microsoft Corporation has an effective global restructuring strategy spanning from the first quarter of 2023 until the end of the third quarter of 2023. The corporation has, however, already fired roughly 2700 individuals in the United States. The impacted teams reportedly provided help to the organization’s management, compliance, and security divisions. These divisions affect the growth and stability of the company. Will Microsoft be able to cope with the available staff, or will the staff reduction affect their products and services?
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