More job cuts may follow 5,000 layoffs at Microsoft

Less than four months after announcing plans to slash 5,000 jobs, software giant Microsoft has warned of more job cuts depending on the impact of the economic slowdown.

"As we move forward, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure, including additional job eliminations," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a memo to employees on Tuesday.

In January, the software major announced that it would trim 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months.

"Microsoft will eliminate up to 5,000 jobs in R&D, HR, marketing, sales, finance, legal, and IT over the next 18 months, including 1,400 jobs today," the company said in a statement on January 22.

Ballmer in the memorandum said the firm is implementing the "second phase" of the plan to bring down spending and cut jobs. The latest action would include positions within and outside the US.

The Microsoft chief noted that affected employees in the US would be notified directly by their managers while in other countries, local leadership teams would provide the details.

"With this announcement, we are mostly but not all done with the planned 5,000 job eliminations by June 2010.

"We are moving quickly to reach this target in response to consistent feedback from our people and business groups that it's important to make decisions and reduce uncertainty for employees as quickly as possible...," Ballmer said.

Rattled by the adverse global economic conditions, Microsoft posted a fall in quarterly revenue for the first time in 23 years, last month.

For the third quarter ended March 31, 2009, the software giant reported a six per cent fall in revenue at $13.65 billion, the first of its kind since the company went public 23 years ago. In the year-ago period, Microsoft's revenue stood at $14.45 billion.

During the same period, profits tumbled 32 per cent to $2.97 billion. It had a profit of $4.38 billion in the comparable period.