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Microsoft's axeman Nadella fills baskets with 2,100 fresh heads

Round 2 of layoffs sees jobs cut company-wide

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has brought down his axe again, sending off the next batch of the 18,000 employees he has promised will lose their jobs by the end of the year.

The Redmond supremo issued about 2,100 pink slips on Thursday, the Seattle Times reports, bringing the total number of layoffs to approximately 15,100 and counting.

Throughout the process, Nadella has maintained that most of the cuts will come from Microsoft's new devices and services business, which it bought from Nokia in April. Professional positions and manufacturing jobs in Nokia's factories around the world will be eliminated, he said.

But that still leaves thousands of jobs to be lost across Microsoft's business in the US and elsewhere, and Thursday's layoffs reportedly included 747 employees in the Puget Sound region of Washington, which includes Seattle, Bellevue, and Microsoft's hometown of Redmond.

Taking into account the cuts in July, Microsoft has shed 2,098 employees in and around Redmond, so far.

Other US locations were reportedly affected by Thursday's cuts, too, including Microsoft's Fargo, North Dakota campus, which works on Dynamics ERP, among other projects. The exact number of jobs cut in Fargo has not been disclosed, but that any were lost was something of a surprise, as Microsoft's Fargo site leader told North Dakota Senator John Hoeven in July that he wasn't expecting that campus to be affected.

Redmond-watcher Mary Jo Foley also received word that the company is closing its Microsoft Research laboratory in Mountain View, California. The lab currently employs around 50 researchers working on distributed computing projects.

Microsoft declined to comment on Thursday's layoffs, but if Nadella's earlier projections hold, we can expect at least one more round in the coming months.

Also this week, there was some turnover on Microsoft's board of directors. Dina Dublon and David Marquardt both announced that they will not seek reelection to the board following the expiration of their terms in December. Dublon joined in 2005, while Marquardt has served since way back in 1981.

Taking their places will be Teri List-Stoll, CFO of Kraft Foods Group, and Charles Scharf, CEO of Visa. The two new members will take their seats effective October 1, which will increase the size of Redmond's board to 12 members through the end of the year. ®

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