Microsoft to lay off Irish staff as part of 9,000 job cuts worldwide
'The Department received a collective redundancy notification from Microsoft on 2 July,' said a spokesperson for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
'Any further queries should be directed to the company.'
However, a spokesperson for Microsoft declined to give any information on prospective job cuts here.
"We continue to implement organisational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,' she said, when asked about layoffs in Ireland.
Microsoft employs around 4,000 people in Ireland, with a further 2,000 people employed at its subsidiary, Linkedin, which has a base in Dublin.
The cuts are to be implemented across several divisions and geographical offices, according to the Seattle Times, reporting from Microsoft's global headquarters.
The tech giant has said that the layoffs are part of a restructuring effort.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently disclosed that up to a third of programming at the tech company is now done by AI, with a higher percentage likely.
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However, the current cuts are thought to be aimed across several job categories, including sales and middle-management.
The news comes just days after Intel said that it plans to cut up to 195 jobs from its 4,900-staff Kildare plant.
The proposed cuts, details of which have been notified to the government as required under Irish law, would represent 4pc of the facility's workforce, a figure far short of the 20pc floated in a report by Bloomberg earlier this year.
No information of staff positions or titles potentially affected have yet been disclosed. Details of financial compensation packages have also not been disclosed.
However, the cuts are not expected to take effect before September, following an industrial relations process.
The company has previously said that cuts would involve "streamlining the organisation, eliminating management layers', with no further detail on the sectors to be targeted, other than that it intended to shrink expenses in 'R&D, marketing, general and administrative' divisions.
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