Microsoft retrenches sales and marketing team in Singapore
Microsoft has laid off almost every member of the consumer sales and marketing team at its Singapore’s office in the latest round of a global retrenchment exercise by the tech giant, as it continues to redirect manpower to its cloud service Azure.
Microsoft lays off staff in Singapore
According to The Straits Times, the team, which originally had more than 10 people, has now just one person to handle the distribution of products to retailers in Singapore.
The paper quoted a Microsoft spokeswoman claiming that the company informed the affected personnel about its decision about two weeks ago.
"Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis. This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time to time, redeployment in others,” said the spokeswoman.
The Washington-based company still has around 2,000 staff in Singapore in its enterprise divisions after the layoffs.
Microsoft has blamed the thousand of layoffs it has conducted in recent years for the lack of gender diversity in its workforce. At the end of 2016, it revealed that the number of female employees it employs is just over 25%.