The rumors were true as Microsoft announced today that thousands of Microsoft employees will be let go from the company as they work to streamline operations and conform to Nadella's new mission



From Neowin:

Microsoft is a company that is undergoing significant change. With a new CEO, a new marching beat and a new hardware unit that makes millions of smartphones per year, the company looks dramatically different compared with a year ago. Unfortunately, as Microsoft has shifted and changed over the last 12 months, the need for further reorganization has arisen and thus, the decision to cut 18,000 jobs from the workforce was made.

It's not all that surprising, given that when Microsoft bought the Nokia mobility arm, it gained 25,000 employees, making some redundancies inevitable, given the overlap of some roles. Indeed, those that joined the company from Nokia will bear the brunt of the layoffs - 12,500 of the jobs to be cut will be former Nokia employees. The cuts extend further into the core of Microsoft as well, with an additional 5,500 jobs to be terminated from other MS departments.

  Microsoft layoffs get official, 18,000 jobs to be cut in largest round of layoffs ever