Finance, Internet

Major Stock News: Another Round Of Microsoft (NASDAQ MSFT) Layoffs

According to knowledgeable sources, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ MSFT) is laying off its entire global advertising sales team. The reduction in force comes as the ad sales positions have become largely redundant as individual divisions are handling their own ad sales today.

The sources note the layoffs are coming within the Microsoft Advertising division, and are anticipated to include at least 100 employees in the U.S., UK and elsewhere, with duties relating to selling advertising space on Microsoft’s MSN, Bing, Xbox, Outlook, Skype and Windows 8 franchises.

The Microsoft Advertising exec team is led by Frank Holland, a VP of advertising and online. Holland’s continued role with the company is unsure at this time. The possible closure of Microsoft Advertising had been discussed by Wall Street analysts for some time.

The software giant only had a tiny 2.45% share of the global display advertising market in 2013, according to eMarketer. Market leader Google Inc (NASDAQ GOOG) has an almost 31% share of the online ad market and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ FB)’s share is above 5.5%.

News on Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ MSFT)

The sources noted the layoffs were actually announced on Wednesday of this week. This reduction in force boils down to the fact that the Microsoft Advertising global sales team had become redundant, and was axed as part of the largest ever job realignment in Microsoft’s history announced over the summer.

All told the job cuts are expected to add up to 18,000 positions across the business.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ MSFT) Business News

A Microsoft Corporation (NASDA :MSFT) spokeswoman commented on Friday morning: “We’ve taken another step that will complete almost all the 18,000 reductions announced in July. The reductions happening today are spread across many different business units, and many different countries.”

Thanks for visiting the TechNews.org website. Be sure to catch all Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ MSFT) financial news, bookmark us and check all the videos and news articles regarding the Microsoft stock.