Microsoft Fires Entire Consumer Research Team Of 200 Employees; 1% Workforce Already Fired In July

Microsoft has asked around 200 employees from one of its customer-focused R&D projects to leave.

This comes after it laid off 1 per cent or 1,800 employees in July.

Latest layoffs

The recent layoffs have affected contracted recruiters across several locations.

The additional job cuts were mainly in Microsoft’s Modern Life Experiences (MLX) group, which was put together in 2018 with the goal of “winning back consumers”.

200 employees in this group have been told to find another position at the company within 60 days, or take severance.

A company spokesperson declined to provide details but also didn’t deny that the layoffs had occurred.

The affected team

The Modern Life Experiences team was focused on “bringing consumer products directly to the people who need them, empowering families to learn, explore and connect in a fun and safe environment.”

This team later partnered Microsoft’s Family Safety group to build the first version of the Family Safety apps for iOS and Android.

In June 2020 it launched Money in Excel, a template that let users automatically connect bank, credit card, investment, and loan accounts to Excel to receive personalized insights.

This project is now scheduled to shut down on June 30, 2023.

1 percent workforce strength laid off

The layoffs in July of nearly 1 per cent of its 1,80,000-strong workforce affected people across its offices and product divisions.

In an official statement it had said that a “small number of role eliminations” had taken place.

It evaluates its business priorities on a regular basis, and makes structural adjustments accordingly.

The statement said that the job cuts spanned different groups including consulting, customer, and partner solutions across different regions worldwide.

Slowed hiring across industry

The software giant has also slowed hiring in the Windows, Teams and Office groups.

Fellow tech giants including Google, Meta, Oracle, Twitter, Nvidia, Snap, Uber, Spotify, Intel and Salesforce have also  either laid off employees or slowed hiring in the current economic downturn.