OUR Microsoft plans to shoot 10,000 workersthe company announced Wednesday.

According to a related New York Times report, this was driven by a drive to cut costs amid economic uncertainty and refocus on strategic priorities such as artificial intelligence.

The company employed approx. 221,000 workers before the end of June, and the cuts will be less than 5% of the global workforce. Now the company plans to cut positions mainly in the engineering department. Bloomberg. OUR Wall Street Journalciting a source, noted that layoffs could be announced as early as Wednesday.

It is noted that many of her companies Silicon Valley have advanced since the beginning of the year big cuts, due to high inflation, which puts a burden on household budgets. At the same time, demand for digital services has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

With these cuts, Microsoft becomes the latest tech giant to move in this direction after the wave of hiring that preceded the rise of online services due to the pandemic and expansion cloud computing, have created intense competition in the search for talent in the technology industry.

“It’s a tough choice we’ve made in our 47-year history to remain a big company in this industry that doesn’t forgive those who don’t adapt to platform changes,” said the Microsoft CEO. Satya Nadellain a message to staff.

layoffs, which they start on wednesday and will continue until Marchare the largest here and about eight years.

S. Nadella cut ca. 25,000 jobs in time 2014 and his 2015, as Microsoft backed out of its ill-fated acquisition of a mobile phone company. Nokia.

Like other tech companies, Microsoft has expanded rapidly during the pandemic, hiring more 75,000 people as of 2019. Microsoft’s annual revenue grew by 58% in three yearsbut rising interest rates and the prospect of a recession have dampened the company’s outlook.

From the quarter to October, he reported the slowest growth in five years and warned that tepid results could follow.

S. Nadella noted: “We see that organizations in every industry are being cautious as some parts of the world are in recession and others are anticipating such a recession.”

Changes, including layoffs and other restructuring costs, will cost money $1.2 billion.

The company has invested Open AIincluding the possible placement of other $10 billion for the popular artificial intelligence system ChatGPTand acquisition $69 billion video game companies Activision