Microsoft plans to cut around 11,000 workers worldwide, representing about five per cent of its employee base, in the coming days, according to Sky News.
In those layoffs, the Redmond, Wash.-based vendor could cut as many as a third of its recruiting staff, according to a separate report from Business Insider.
The company could take as long as two years to get back to its rate before it decided to freeze hiring.
Microsoft employs around 221,000 people - 122,000 in the US - and plans to report earnings for its second fiscal quarter on Jan. 24.
Microsoft Layoffs 2023
A Microsoft spokesperson told CRN in an email that the vendor does "not comment on rumor."
Along with the layoffs, some teams now require executive-level approval for hiring and job candidates are seeing some offers slashed by as much as 30 per cent, according to Business Insider.
The cuts will also include roles in engineering, says Bloomberg, and should be larger than layoff rounds from Microsoft last year.
Microsoft has a history of conducting layoffs ahead of earnings, as it did in October and July last year. Those cuts hit less than one per cent of the company, according to Bloomberg.
The Microsoft layoffs are not a surprise given reports from the tech giant and Amazon around shaky cloud spending entering 2023.
The tech industry as a whole has been hit by a wave of cutbacks as the sector grapples with inflation and rising interest rates in the US and concerns over a possible global recession.
Citrix, Informatica, Salesforce, Cisco, HP, Intel, Elastic, Aqua Security, Microsoft-focused AvePoint and N-able are just some of the vendors to announce cuts recently.
