BENGALURU: Fear of job cuts in the IT industry revisits employees as Microsoft has announced 3,000 job cuts from its global workforce. While the company has not specified which group of employees or which region will be affected, according to reports, these layoffs are likely to happen in the sales division as the company looks towards focusing on the sales of its cloud computing platform Azure.
In its official statement, the company said, “Microsoft is implementing changes to better serve our customers and partners. We are taking steps to notify some employees that their jobs are under consideration or that their positions will be eliminated. Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis. This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time-to-time, re-deployment in others.”
When Express reached out to the company, a spokesperson refrained from India-specific comments and said the company could not give out specific details at the moment.
Indian employees, too, are likely to be affected, with the company having its offices at around 13 cities across the country including Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai, among other cities.
Given its large employee count, the number of layoffs announced does not form a significant portion of the workforce, said Nasscom President Raman Roy. “From whatever number base Microsoft has globally, whether 3,000 forms a significant percentage of their international workforce, that computation has to be done.”
As far as the Indian IT industry is concerned, Nasscom stood by its projection of 7-8 per cent growth in revenue and a net addition of 1.3-1.5 lakh jobs, Roy said.
Job insecurity looms large in IT industry
Job insecurity continues to be of prime concern to Indian IT employees with companies resorting to layoffs based on “performance”. IT companies across the country are continuing to sack employees without proper reason or notice, claim employees.
According to a former employee of an IT MNC in Hyderabad who was laid off in November 2016, the company did not give him any platform for grievance redressal before firing him. Speaking to Express, the Hyderabad-based techie said while his skill set was in Java and he was hired for a project concerning the same, as soon as he joined the company he was told that there were no projects relating to Java. He was assigned a dotcom project, only to be soon pulled up for non-performance.
His employers told him that he was expected to perform across different technology, as he was a senior employee. “I was laid off on non-performance grounds but this was only an excuse,” the employee alleged. He has now approached the labour commissioner, seeking justice, he added. Even as industry bodies such as Nasscom are claiming that the situation of layoffs is being exaggerated, IT employees find their situation otherwise.