In its most recent filing with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for the 2022 financial year, Microsoft said it employed 2533 people in Australia.
If the percentage of job cuts from earlier this year was applied evenly across its subsidiaries, this would mean it had already jettisoned 127 people in 2023 before last week’s cuts.
US media reported that last week’s redundancies targeted those primarily in customer service and sales roles, but also some engineering project managers and marketing employees.
The move comes amid a shift in approach towards staffing at larger technology companies. The Financial Review recently revealed that Canva and Atlassian had introduced new tougher performance management metrics, while Atlassian told 480 leaders to stop being managers and start coding again.
Atlassian made 500 full-time staff, or 5 per cent of its workforce, redundant in March.
In its most recent results filed with ASIC, Microsoft Australia recorded a fall in annual profit to $132.4 million for the 2022 financial year, from $148.8 million the previous year. Its local revenue, however, surged by more than $1 billion to $6.3 billion.
To reduce the amount of tax it pays, Microsoft’s Australian operations, along with its UK, New Zealand and Singapore arms are set up as subsidiaries of Microsoft Ireland Research, which is in turn a subsidiary of an Irish division called “Microsoft Round Island One,” which resides in Bermuda.
These in turn are listed in Microsoft’s structure under a subsidiary known as RI Holdings, which is based in Hamilton, Bermuda, where the corporate tax rate is 0 per cent.
