REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Microsoft says it will eliminate up to 18,000 jobs over the next year as it works on integrating the Nokia devices business it bought in April.
With the Nokia deal, Microsoft’s employee headcount rose from about 99,000 last year to 127,000 as of last month.
Microsoft Corp. said Thursday that of the up to 18,000 jobs, about 12,500 professional and factory jobs will be cut. It anticipates charges of $1.1 billion to $1.6 billion over the next four quarters, which includes $750 million to $800 million for severance and related benefit costs.
Microsoft’s stock rose slightly in Thursday premarket trading.
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There’s going to be a tiny sliver of the world’s population who have good-paying jobs in the tiny number of gigantic conglomerates. The rest of us can live on their crumbs.
That’s where we’re heading, if we’re not already there. These mergers have to stop, staring with Comcast/Time Warner.
When one business buys out another business, there really should be laws about how many jobs can get cut. I get that combining companies create efficiencies and that some jobs become superfluous. However, if the original two companies could support all of the original employees, then combining them should, in theory, still support all of the original employees. Plus you get to get rid of at least one CEO (who probably made untold millions, but probably gets untold millions more in a golden parachute). So, find work for these people instead of laying them off. Hopefully these people will get at least a year’s pay in severance, but it will probably only amount to a month or two.
This kind of thing is common in mature industries. Instead of doing something new or creative, business executives try to grow by buying some company or other and cutting its staff. Well, I guess it can be said that tech has matured as an industry. Bill Gates has grown old.
If the sliver is small enough, it will be a simple matter for the un-privileged to rise up and take instead of waiting for crumbs to fall off the table.
Mitt Romney calls this “creative destruction” and he (and the 1%) loves it!