Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it will lay off approximately 9,000 employees, affecting just under 4% of its global workforce.

The job cuts will impact various teams, regions, and levels of seniority, according to a source familiar with the matter, News.Az reported, citing CNBC.

The announcement was made on the second day of Microsoft’s 2026 fiscal year. Executives at the Redmond, Washington-based company often initiate organisational changes at the start of a new fiscal cycle.

“We continue to implement organisational changes necessary to best position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email.

This move adds to a series of layoffs the company has already carried out this calendar year. In January, Microsoft reduced its headcount by less than 1%, citing performance-based factors. It then eliminated more than 6,000 jobs in May, followed by at least 300 more in June.

As of June 2024, Microsoft employed around 228,000 people worldwide. In the previous year, 2023, it laid off 10,000 workers.

The company’s largest layoff to date occurred in 2014, when 18,000 employees were let go following Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s devices and services division.

As with earlier rounds, including the May cuts, Microsoft is reportedly aiming to reduce the number of management layers between individual contributors and senior executives, the source told CNBC.

Despite the workforce reductions, Microsoft remains financially strong. In the March quarter, the company reported $70 billion in revenue and nearly $26 billion in net income—figures that surpassed Wall Street expectations. This performance has kept Microsoft ranked among the most profitable companies on the S&P 500 index, according to FactSet.

Executives are forecasting approximately 14% year-over-year revenue growth for the June quarter, driven by ongoing expansion in Azure cloud services and subscriptions to corporate productivity software.

Microsoft shares were down about 0.6% at the beginning of Wednesday’s trading session, while the S&P 500 index remained largely flat.

Other software providers including Autodesk, Chegg and CrowdStrike have also trimmed their workforces in 2025. Earlier on Wednesday, payroll processing firm ADP reported that the U.S. private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June, despite economists polled by Dow Jones predicting a gain of 100,000.