Microsoft Is Offering Its Workers In China A Free Phone To Quit | TechTree.com

Microsoft Is Offering Its Workers In China A Free Phone To Quit

The issue highlights the insensitivity with which the company is dealing with its planned layoffs.

 

Microsoft is reportedly offering workers in China a Lumia 630 smartphone in order to get them to quit the company voluntarily. This comes soon after Microsoft announced it was cutting 18,000 jobs over the next year, largely affecting employees from the recently acquired Nokia handset division.

The shocking revelation outlines the dire attempt of Microsoft to shed excess flab quickly, and has raised quite a few eyebrows with regard to the lack of ethics. It almost seems as though the company is trying to downplay the fact that thousands of people will be rendered jobless.

The announced layoffs haven't been taken well in China, with TechCrunch reporting that protests have cropped up. For the Redmond giant the job cuts are a way to immediately boost earnings, which have been weighed down by the losses Nokia's handset division brought with it.

Microsoft is supposedly offering the 'give up your job for a phone' offer to up to 300 employees daily. If the reports are true, it's highly insensitive on the part of Microsoft to carry out such exercises, gifting hardware to employees on their way out the door.

[Also read: Microsoft To Cut 18,000 Jobs Over The Next One Year]

The company so far hasn't responded to the reports, probably given the sensitivity of the issue. Microsoft has said that the short term losses won't be a big problem as long as they come to an end. The layoffs are being used as a way to immediately boost profits, with the company claiming it will save over a billion dollars in the next year.


TAGS: Microsoft, Lumia 630, Chinese Workers, Layoffs, Nokia

 
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