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Decoding Microsoft's AI workforce shake-up: Are more layoffs coming?

Microsoft has offered voluntary exit and retirement plans, which the speaker notes is not the first time (a similar program was run in 2021), aiming to trim its workforce, especially in president, vice president and management roles where some work can be done by AI. The company has about 223,000 employees. The speaker said revenue per employee keeps rising at Microsoft and Meta as headcount falls, and that Meta's workforce was down about 12% year over year in its latest earnings report. The speaker expects outright layoffs next year and says sequential quarterly growth in Azure is the metric to watch when Microsoft reports earnings.

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Market cap$3.9T
Close on 10/26/2026532.60
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