Microsoft is cutting thousands of jobs in sales and hiring …
Microsoft is replacing thousands of traditional salespeople with more technical staff following its latest round of layoffs that eliminated approximately 9,000 employees this week. The strategic shift comes as the company faces intensifying competition from OpenAI and Google in the artificial intelligence market.
The job cuts, affecting less than 4% of Microsoft’s global workforce, specifically targeted conventional sales roles that the company plans to replace with “solutions engineers” who can demonstrate AI tools and provide technical expertise earlier in the sales process. This marks Microsoft’s fourth major workforce reduction in 18 months.
