The Redmond, Washington-based software giant, Microsoft is reportedly laying off 1,000 employees across its news, Cloud Azure service divisions globally even though its revenues shot up significantly in the third quarter of FY20.
Sources privy to the development said that India is also one of the impacted geographies where Microsoft has cut an unspecified number of roles.
"The employees working at MSN office in Gurgaon, Noida, India, especially the ones on contract were asked to quit by June 30. This involved the news producer/editing jobs," one of the impacted employees told this publication wishing anonymity. MSN has, however, retained some key roles at its news divisions in India, he added.
According to a report by global news agency, AFP, Microsoft has cut 50 roles across its news division, MSN, globally as the tech giant plans to use Artificial Intelligence to power content on the news platforms in place of the news editors.
Microsoft employs 8,000 people across 10 locations in India engaged in sales, marketing, customer services and support. Its Research and Development Centre in Hyderabad is the largest such facility outside the headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Nearly 46 percent roles at Microsoft are that of engineering.
With a huge surge in unemployment across the globe following COVID-19, tech giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and IBM had earlier pledged they will not fire their employees.
The retrenchments at Microsoft follow its announcement to close brick and mortar stores across US, Australia and Canada.
On the back of a huge demand for Microsoft's video conferencing app, Teams, and Cloud azure services, the revenues for the third quarter (January-March), FY20 reported a revenue of $30.5 billion with a 59% increase in revenue for Azure services.
Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella had earlier said that the company witnessed a digital transformation of two years in just two months of COVID pandemic, as the tech giant helped businesses adapt to the remote work culture.
An emailed query sent to Microsoft India did not elicit any response at the time of publishing this story.