Microsoft on Wednesday morning announced plans to cut up to 7,800 jobs as part of an effort to "restructure the company's phone hardware business to better focus and align resources."
Most of the cuts will affect people in Microsoft's struggling phone business. The layoffs will occur over the next several months and be "substantially complete" by the end of the calendar year, Microsoft said.
"I don't take changes in plans like these lightly, given that they affect the lives of people who have made an impact at Microsoft," CEO Satya Nadella wrote in an email to employees Wednesday. "We are deeply committed to helping our team members through these transitions."
As a result of this change, Microsoft said it will record an impairment charge of approximately $7.6 billion related to assets associated with its Nokia acquisition, in addition to a restructuring charge of $750 million to $850 million.
The move comes after Microsoft last month shuffled its executive team in an effort to "drive engineering alignment." As part of that move, former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop left the company and Executive Vice President Terry Myerson took full control of devices.
The new round of cuts, which comes shortly before the July 29 launch of Windows 10, isn't entirely unexpected. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella last month sent a lengthy memo to staffers in which he said that "engineering and organization changes" were on the horizon for July. In the message, Nadella also warned employees that Microsoft would need to "make some tough choices in areas where things are not working and solve hard problems in ways that drive customer value."
For Redmond employees, layoffs are likely all too familiar. The company last year axed more than 18,000 jobs in three rounds of cuts, including 13,000 in July, 2,100 in September, and 3,000 in October. As of April, Microsoft had more than 118,000 employees globally, The New York Times reported.