Microsoft is cutting thousands of employees across the company

Microsoft said it will cut 6,000 workers across the company in an effort to reduce management layers.

The planned terminations will amount to less than 3% of total headcount, a spokesperson said. They will occur across geographies, employee levels and include LinkedIn, the spokesperson added.

"We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace," the spokesperson said.

Read more: Microsoft predicts an AI-focused future for the workplace

Microsoft, which employed 228,000 people in June 2024, deploys periodic layoffs, often to reorient its headcount toward priority areas. The company laid off 10,000 people in January 2023, including personnel at the HoloLens augmented reality headset unit and other hardware projects. 

The company has been under pressure in recent years to keep a lid on costs amid massive spending on the data centers that power artificial intelligence services and the Azure cloud-computing unit. Microsoft has said it's on track to spend about $80 billion this fiscal year on the server farms. CNBC reported the layoffs earlier.

Microsoft often restructures teams and announces other changes near the end of its fiscal year, which closes in June. Late last month, Microsoft told workers it's planning to use third-party firms to handle more sales of software to small and midsize customers. It also restructured some technical teams earlier last month.

Read more: 64% of employees no longer trust their companies after mass layoffs

Several other tech companies have also announced layoffs this year. Meta Platforms said in January that it planned to ax about 5% of staff via performance-based terminations and would hire new people to fill those roles. The following month, Bloomberg reported that Salesforce was cutting more than 1,000 positions, in large part to make room for new AI-focused positions.