The job cuts recently announced by Microsoft affected the people who create the company’s products more hard, which shows that even software developers are at risk in the era of artificial intelligence.
In Washington, Microsoft’s native state, software engineering was by far the largest labor category that received dismissal, Representing more than 40% of the approximately 2,000 positions deleted, according to state documents reviewed by Bloomberg.
Microsoft announced that it would cut about 6,000 jobs throughout the company. Washington state data represents approximately one third of the total.
As Microsoft and their rivals make strong investments in AI, they analyze the costs and rearrange their budgets. In recent weeks, Microsoft executives have pledged to control spending amid the huge investments in the construction of data centers.
At the same time, the tools based on AI, capable of writing or analyzing code, are automating elements of software development that engineers previously made with the keyboard. In Microsoft, up to 30% of the code of some projects is now written by AI, according to Executive Director Satya Nadella in April.
Several technology companies are restructuring their templates to focus on AI. Earlier this year, Salesforce planned to cut more than 1,000 employees by hiring personnel for sales positions focused on AI, especially in sales. The executive director, Marc Benioff, also said that the company will reduce the hiring of engineers in 2025 due to the use of AI. When Workday announced a dismissal in February, the executive director, Carl Eschenbach, said that hiring would continue in strategic areas such as AI.
In addition to software engineers, many of Microsoft’s most affected employees directed software projects. Product management positions and technical management of programs represented almost 600 of the reductions in Washington, which represents approximately 30% of the total.
Employment cuts also affected some managers and workers assigned to artificial intelligence projects, according to a person familiar with cuts. The data show that relatively few customer service stalls, such as sales or marketing, were affected. Microsoft declined to comment.
Microsoft said the dismissals sought to eliminate managerial strata. However, it is not clear how much it is really reducing. About 17% of those dismissed in Washington were managers. The company used approximately the same percentage of managers throughout its operation at the end of 2023, according to a workforce report presented to the Commission for Equal Opportunities in the United States employment.
