I don’t get really it either. If they are productive workers and you’ve invested in their training and development, it’s shortsighted to fire them. They’ve got unique knowledge and experience with your products that new hires won’t have. You’re going to hire their replacements in 12-24 months, and you’ll have to make all those investments again.
Then again, Microsoft has tens of thousands of employees, and by average, some percentage of them are probably lazy, disgruntled, overpaid, incompetent, etc. An economic downturn gives you a convenient excuse to cut all of those people loose at once without anyone feeling bad about it. And minimizes the risk of unfair dismissal lawsuits. It’s a recession, people get laid off.
Then again again, they probably saved at least $200 million per year (salary, benefits, overhead, etc.) by letting them go, and that’s not pocket change, even when you’re making $4 billion a year. It also suggests they expect their profits to fall much more next year. If they post a $200MM profit next year, then this won’t seem like such a bad move.
I thought I had heard that most of these layoffs are in the entertainment division (XBox and Zune), and those guys have set fire to billions of dollars with no real sign of profit in sight. I believe those two products alone have been responsible for a lifetime net loss of more than $5 billion. Maybe at some point enough is enough.