Microsoft plans to fire around 5% of its employees worldwide in January, which is approximately 10,000-11,000 jobs, UK broadcaster Sky News reported.
 
The IT behemoth may announce staff reduction plans in the coming days, according to the broadcaster, adding that the decision was motivated primarily by the current economic climate.
 
In response to Sky News's request, Microsoft's developer stated that the company "does not comment on rumor or speculation." Microsoft will join the ranks of other major IT corporations that have reduced their workforce in the last year due to the global economic slowdown.

Twitter, Amazon cut employees

Earlier in November, Twitter began firing contract workers as part of mass layoffs, according to the Axios news website, citing sources. In late October, The Washington Post reported that Musk planned to lay off 25% of the Twitter workforce in an initial round of cuts after his takeover of the company.

Following his purchase, the billionaire began mass layoffs to optimize expenses.

It is worth mentioning that Twitter Inc. let off more than 90% of its employees in India, as part of Elon Musk's global layoffs, significantly depleting its engineering and product personnel in a prospective growth region.

As for Amazon, its Chief Executive Andy Jassy announced this month that the retail giant plans to cut more than 18,000 jobs under the pretext of economic uncertainty and that the company hired too rapidly during the pandemic. 

He said the announcement was made suddenly "because one of our teammates leaked this information externally."

"Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we're sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles," said CEO Andy Jassy in a statement to his employees, adding that the company was "deeply aware that these role eliminations are difficult for people, and we don’t take these decisions lightly."

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Amazon did in fact hire workers in large numbers during the pandemic due to the extremely high demand for deliveries at the beginning of 2020 and 2022.