Microsoft Cutting 5,000 Jobs Over Next 18 Months

This morning Microsoft announced that they will be cutting 5,000 jobs across the board over the next eighteen months thanks to a serious profit shortfall compared to their estimates for this last financial quarter. Some 1,400 of the lay-offs are to happen today. The round of layoffs will be the largest in company history.

John Cook over at TechFlash has published CEO Steve Ballmer's email to all Microsoft employees (subject line: "Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs"... ouch), in which Ballmer explains why the job cuts are necessary and outlines some of the other aggressive ways the company will be cutting costs. Among those strategies is a scale-back on the expansion of the Puget Sound campus. So far, the strategy to reassure the market has resulted in MSFT stock dropping to a low of $17.19.

Whether or not you love Microsoft as a corporate entity, all signs point towards a significant impact on our regional economy from this swath of layoffs. If you're a Microsoftie, good luck today--and please don't hesitate to write in and let us know how it's going over there.