Microsoft To Shut Down Two Plants In China, 9,000 Affected

The Chinese Odyssey continues for Microsoft. Since the Nokia acquisition, the technology titan has been gradually cutting jobs and releasing its surplus workforce.

No surprises here, considering they got nearly 25,000 employees from the Nokia deal.

Microsoft initially projected that they may have to cut no less than 18,000 jobs from its workforce, and many of these were let go in multiple rounds of layoffs last year. However, there is talk that Redmond is now gearing up to release even more workers.

This time in China.

According to this report, Microsoft is planning to eliminate some 9,000 jobs in the country. These cuts will come by closing two manufacturing plants that are located in Beijing and Dongguan.

An unnamed Microsoft China executive has confirmed that the closures will occur by the end of next month. Instead, the company will move manufacturing to Vietnam — a country where a lot of US based firms are moving their production units too.

We probably will get an official confirmation sometimes in March, if there is truth to this report.

Again, layoffs are always a sensitive matter, more so layoffs at this size and scale. This one may have bene inevitable, but hopefully this is the final wave of job cuts for Microsoft.