Microsoft lays off 10,000 employees: Xbox, 343 and Bethesda are affected

The fiscal year of many big companies will end on April 1 with the first quarter closed, which means that some of them will make cuts to please investors. That’s one reason why rumors earlier this week that Microsoft was laying off thousands of employees rang sadly true, even though the company’s fiscal year ends on June 30. We now know this to be true, as well as the old “we need to do this instead of lowering the pay and bonuses of top managers” reasoning behind it.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft has confirmed that the company will carry out 10,000 layoffs before the end of this fiscal quarter. Nadella tries to make it sound less negative by stating that this is less than 5% of his entire base and that they will treat those affected “with dignity and respect” by offering them “a number of benefits, including above-market severance pay, coverage six-month continuous vesting, six-month continuous vesting, career transition services, and 60-day notice before termination, regardless of whether such notice is legally required.

That’s all very well, but (as you may have understood by now) this doesn’t diminish the fact that so many people are going to lose their jobs while many leaders keep their Esports Extrasntic salaries and the company can pay $69 billion to buy Activision Blizzard King .

Still, it’s also somewhat understandable, as Nadella echoes what many game CEOs have said before: Incredible growth during the height of the pandemic is now giving way to a downturn cycle. We will see if these measures are enough to balance it or if the Xbox Series and Game Pass price increases are also just around the corner.

As for the layoffs, it is known that they will affect employees of gaming divisions such as XBix, Microsoft Gaming, and also members of the 343 (Halo Infinite) and Bethesda (Starfield) studios such as Joseph Staten, according to sources. Bloomberg.