Microsoft finishes last round of mass layoffs

Last year Microsoft announced it would cut 18,000 jobs and it appears the plan is now almost completely executed. ZD Net writes the firm laid off hundreds of employees last week, in what is expected to be the last of the anticipated broad cuts as part of the restructuring plan announced last July.

Most of the recent cuts were made at Microsoft's IT group. Previous rounds focused the OS group, Microsoft Research, Xbox, MSN and other engineering and marketing positions but especially the handset and servers division acquired from Nokia was hit hard. Microsoft said 12,500 of the 18,000 job cuts were from those who joined Microsoft as part of the Nokia acquisition in 2014.

The Times quoted an e-mail from Microsoft chief information officer Jim DuBois, who said the IT cuts were designed to "remove role overlap, optimize activities and functions, align disciplines with the rest of Microsoft, and, perhaps most importantly, reshape IT for the skills we need to transform."

Microsoft officials announced last July that the company planned to cut 18,000 jobs, the largest layoff in Microsoft's history.The layoffs occurred over several rounds -- July, September and October.