Microsoft(US:MSFT) Hu Xiu·2025-05-29 12:13Group 1 - Microsoft plans to lay off over 6,000 employees globally starting mid-July 2025, which represents nearly 3% of its workforce [1][4][5] - Approximately 40% of the laid-off employees are software engineers, raising concerns about AI potentially replacing technical personnel [2][3][6][7] - The layoffs will affect various departments, including core services and products like LinkedIn, Xbox, GitHub, and Azure [4][6] Group 2 - Microsoft is increasing its investment in AI, having spent $80 billion on infrastructure for AI development by the end of the fiscal year 2025 [14] - The company is transitioning software engineers to become AI prompt engineers, indicating a shift in job roles due to AI advancements [10][11] - Other tech giants like Amazon and Meta are also announcing layoffs, with Amazon planning to cut approximately 14,000 management positions to redirect resources towards AI and automation [16][17] Group 3 - Microsoft reported a revenue of $70.1 billion for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025, a 13% increase, with AI services contributing significantly to this growth [13] - The company is optimizing its management structure, aiming to reduce management layers from 8-12 to 6-8, which will involve layoffs of middle management [27] - The overall trend in the tech industry shows a significant number of layoffs, with over 551 companies cutting more than 150,000 jobs in 2024 alone [18]