Microsoft announces 2,743 layoffs for employees in east King County
REDMOND, Wash. - Microsoft will be laying off another round of hundreds of employees in Redmond, Bellevue and Issaquah, according to the state Employment Security Department (ESD).
ESD issues a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) alert when companies with 100 or more employees have layoffs or closures.
In this latest batch of layoffs, WARN says Microsoft will be letting go of 559 employees at the Redmond and Bellevue locations.
Those layoffs will start May 26.
Earlier this month, WARN also announced a 689-person layoff for Microsoft that impacts Redmond, Bellevue and Issaquah. Those staff layoffs will start on May 5.
Microsoft cuts 10,000 jobs, about 5% of global workforce
Microsoft is cutting 10,000 workers, almost 5% of its workforce, joining other tech companies that have scaled back their pandemic-era expansions.
Just this year, before these two layoff announcements, Microsoft also announced the layoff of an additional 1,495 employees at the Redmond, Bellevue and Issaquah locations.
All four layoffs announced so far this year combine to make for 2,743 employees. In January, Microsoft announced that it would be cutting 10,000 positions to cut costs resulting from overhiring during the pandemic and uncertainty in the economy.
Currently, Microsoft employs about 221,000 workers globally, according to The Associated Press. These cuts would account for less than 5% of the entire national and international workforce.
Microsoft hasn't had a mass layoff in Washington since 2014, according to WARN's website.
The WARN Act requires companies to notify affected workers 60 days prior to closures or layoffs.