Microsoft announced plans to cut 3% of its global workforce. With the most recent available headcount for the company thought to be around 228,000 last June, that translates into 6,840 firings.

This latest cut follows a roughly 10,000-strong purge back in 2023 and a smaller round of firings in January this year. That latter cull was said by Microsoft to be “performance” based.

“When people are not performing, we take the appropriate action,” Microsoft said in January. However, the company stated that the latest 3% reduction would not be performance based.

Microsoft says the cuts are in part an attempt to reduce layers of management. But beyond that, it’s hard to know what the motivation is beyond perhaps hedging against a tariff-driven downturn.

The move follows Microsoft reporting higher than expected profits of $25.8 billion in the most recent quarter. However, those figures cover a period that predates the uncertainties raised by the ongoing tariff escapades of the Trump administration.

This all follows a fairly grim period for Microsoft’s gaming business of late. Last year, roughly 2,600 staff members were lost across Microsoft’s Xbox division and its newly-acquired Activision Blizzard subsidiary, which was all part of a broader downturn for the games industry.