In a major workforce shake-up, Microsoft is letting go of approximately 9,000 employees—just shy of 4% of its total workforce—as part of a company-wide restructuring initiative. The announcement, reported by News.Az with attribution to CNBC, was made on Wednesday, coinciding with the beginning of Microsoft’s 2026 fiscal year.

The layoffs will affect employees across multiple departments, geographies, and experience levels, though the company has not specified which business units will be most impacted. A source familiar with the development said the restructuring aligns with Microsoft’s ongoing push to flatten its organisational hierarchy—reducing the layers of middle management separating teams from senior leadership.

“We continue to implement organisational changes necessary to best position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace,” a Microsoft spokesperson stated in an email response.

This is not the first workforce reduction Microsoft has enacted in 2025. In January, the company dismissed less than 1% of staff, reportedly linked to performance reviews. By May, over 6,000 roles were eliminated, followed by at least 300 additional cuts in June. Prior to the latest decision, the company’s headcount stood at 228,000 employees globally, as of June 2024.

Microsoft has a history of large-scale layoffs during periods of transition. Its most substantial job reduction occurred in 2014 when 18,000 employees were let go following its acquisition of Nokia’s hardware unit.

The latest move reflects broader trends in the technology and software sectors this year. Several other major players—including Autodesk, Chegg, and cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike—have trimmed their workforces. The news also arrives on the same day that payroll services company ADP reported a net loss of 33,000 private-sector jobs in the US for June—sharply diverging from analysts’ forecasts of a 100,000-job gain, according to Dow Jones.

Despite the layoffs, Microsoft continues to post strong financial results. In its latest quarterly earnings for March, the company reported revenues of $70 billion and a net income nearing $26 billion—surpassing Wall Street expectations and reinforcing its standing as one of the most profitable firms in the S&P 500 index, according to data from FactSet.