2026 Might be the Year Microsoft Replaces Layoffs With Mass Firings (No Severance Payments to Dismissed Staff)
"Mass firings" (or "Sackings"; not bulk actions or RAs) are worse than "Layoffs" or "Redundancies" because they stigmatise those affected (harder for those impacted to find a job after it), set aside severance obligations and morale. This is widely known, so we'll leave it at that; last year after Microsoft fired tens of thousands of people some disgruntled insiders said that Microsoft using terms like "low-performing staff" or "low performers" did considerable damage to those impacted, adding insult to their injury. Based on the time they left Microsoft, some would deduce that they didn't perform well. That's bad karma tattooed to one's forehead (or CV).
If online gossip can be trusted any more than Frank Shaw from Microsoft, it's now said Microsoft won't lay off but FIRE thousands of workers, or expel them using PIPs (many will leave on their own, older people "retiring" and others "resigning" to save face). So the initial reports were correct (in essence), now it's about semantics. Or Microsoft is using some ad hoc tactics for bypassing the "damaging" reports which reportedly sank Microsoft's stock (we saw several news sites attributing a decline in share price to reports about impending mass layoffs).
Perhaps there will be a lot of PIPs next week, as early as next week based on the latest claim. It would be plausible and also cheaper for Microsoft. No severance payments.
It's hard to "see" PIPs unless insiders blow the whistle (so to speak). █