Microsoft tạm thời đóng băng tuyển dụng trong các bộ phận dịch vụ đám mây cốt lõi và bán hàng

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

According to three current Microsoft employees familiar with the decision, in recent weeks, Microsoft executives have informed managers of its key departments, including Azure cloud business and North America sales, to pause all new employee hiring.

It is not uncommon for Microsoft to slow down hiring or even lay off employees at the end of its fiscal year, which ends in June. However, this cost-control mindset at Microsoft reflects the broader attitude of the tech industry—companies are striving to offset the huge investments in artificial intelligence.

Insiders say the paused hiring affects departments at Microsoft that employ tens of thousands of staff. In the two mentioned business segments, executives have instructed managers to stop hiring all candidates who have not yet received job offers, citing the need to control costs and improve profit margins.

Another employee revealed that this hiring freeze does not cover the entire company, with other teams, including the engineering department responsible for developing Copilot (the AI tool built into Microsoft Office and Windows), still continuing to hire.

The tightening of hiring and layoffs has become the norm in the tech industry. Large companies are investing unprecedented amounts of money in AI data centers, while also facing potential impacts from new AI products launched by companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. Just this week, Meta, which has made significant investments in AI data centers, laid off hundreds of employees, and Google is also streamlining its workforce. Smaller software companies like Atlassian are similarly laying off staff or freezing hiring.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), which has invested heavily in AI infrastructure, has laid off thousands of employees in recent months and introduced new internal AI tools to automate the work of existing staff. Sources familiar with the plans revealed that ServiceNow, which provides software for IT personnel, is hiring AI developers and salespeople this year while laying off other positions to maintain a stable overall employee count.

However, Microsoft is facing unique pressure from investors. Its stock price has fallen 24% this year, the worst performance among major tech stocks, reflecting investor concerns about AI potentially disrupting its enterprise software business, as well as worries about Microsoft’s substantial investments in expanding its cloud server rental business.

Microsoft’s last quarterly report showed that the growth rate of its Azure business has slightly slowed, and about 45% of Azure revenue orders (i.e., customer consumption commitments) come from a single client—OpenAI.

Despite multiple layoffs in recent years, with approximately 15,000 last year, the company continues to hire, with the total number of full-time employees at the end of the last fiscal year standing at about 228,000, unchanged from the previous year.

According to a person who has communicated with Microsoft executives, some executives believe that due to pressures from the software business and the widespread use of internal AI tools, the total number of employees will not grow in the coming years.

A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment.

Another signal indicating that the employee count may remain stable is that Microsoft has recently halted construction on five office buildings under development in its Redmond, Washington campus. Company president Brad Smith said last month to local media that Microsoft is still planning arrangements for remote employees to return to the office.

Microsoft executives have made it clear to employees in the cloud business and sales departments that cost reduction, efficiency improvement, and enhancing operational profit margins are the top priorities. Earlier this month, in an email to managers, an executive informed the Azure engineering team led by Girish Babulal, which has 11,000 employees, that all potential hiring is paused, except for those who have already received job offers; the “core goal” of the department before the end of the fiscal year is to narrow the gross margin gap.

Hillary McFadden, chief of staff for the Azure core department, wrote in an email: “The Azure core department has no room or approval authority to continue hiring.”

She stated: “The pressure will continue until we finalize a feasible and actionable plan to address the gross margin gap.” “We do recognize the impact this adjustment might have on your teams; this change is significant.” She also thanked employees for demonstrating leadership in this “difficult situation.”

According to two directly informed sources, in several business divisions overseen by Microsoft’s global sales president and CEO of commercial business Judson Althoff, executives have similarly informed managers that new hiring demands (internally referred to as vacant positions) will be indefinitely paused. This freeze includes the software sales department targeting large U.S. enterprise clients, as well as the department selling Azure to small and medium-sized businesses, each with thousands of employees.