Satya Nadella confirms: Microsoft to cut up to 18,000 jobs globally

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has announced that the company will cut up to 18,000 jobs, in what is the heaviest culling in the 39-year history of the Redmond-based company. The last significant job cut at Microsoft was in 2009, when Ballmer axed 5,800 employees.   Around 12,500 cuts will be in the recently-acquired Nokia devices unit, which Microsoft confirmed buying in April. The company had pledged to cut $600m (£350.8m) per year in costs within 18 months of closing the acquisition, a move that’s now gaining pace. CEO Nadella, who only took over from Steve Ballmer in February this year, has put in place a cloud- and mobile-first strategy and much of the restructuring within the organisation is geared towards this shift.  “Making these decisions to change are difficult, but necessary,” Nadella wrote in the announcement .   Earlier today, we heard reports about the reorganisation and around 6,000 employees were expected to be laid off . The 18,000 figure announced today is roughly 15 percent of the total workforce of the company, which employs 127,000 people around the world, a lot more than rivals Google and Apple. The jobs cuts could take as long as the next six months, and employees will be notified duly, Nadella said.   Nadella added that management structure would see changes to “accelerate the flow of information and decision making.” The firm 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.