Microsoft says it will cut 7,500 jobs, around 7% of its workforce, primarily in its phone hardware business, and write down approximately $7.6 billion related to its Nokia phone business. Around one third of the jobs will be lost in Finland, where the company will shut down a product development unit.
This is the second round of job cuts since Satya Nadella was appointed as CEO in February 2014. Last July, the company announced 18,000 job losses, as Microsoft shifts its focus from hardware to software and the cloud. Microsoft has continued to lose share in the global smartphone market since acquiring Nokia’s handset business last year. The company has so far failed to turn its Windows Phone operating system, which runs on its handsets, into a viable alternative to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.
