In the last layoffs, many of the people who were let go were back working for Microsoft again in a year or so (often as full-time employees, more often as contractors).
I believe that Microsoft has more contractors than it does employees. That is just crazy.
Also, it's nearly impossible to fire even the most grossly incompetent people. One person I worked with was a utter flatline and doing negative work (very bad Q/A, argumentative, and the most useless person I have ever had as a coworker. It took six months to fire the guy, and it was no secret to the third and fourth layer management that the guy was a huge mistake.
> I believe that Microsoft has more contractors than it does employees. That is just crazy.
No, that's smart business if you can do it. You basically remove the burden of tax-minimization and continuity of employment for these people from the corporation. Overall cost might be slightly higher in cashflow terms, but it removes a lot of risk and liabilities.
From a worker-rights perspective it's terrible behaviour (back to the XIX century, choo-choo!), but it can be a very good strategy for a company.
Contractors can be cheaper than employees, despite paying a higher salary. The reason is that they don't need to do so much legal work or pay their insurances and etc, etc. When a project is finished, they can just end the contract and avoid all of the legality. I've known many people that leave their job as employee and get contracted to the same company for those reasons (and more).
You know the government does this all the time. Congress mandates a department cuts their budget. So ok.. fine, the director lays off the IT department. Then all the "deferred" IT folk go to work at"some consulting company" who get the contract to provide IT services to the department. At twice the price the original payroll was.
it happens all the time in government. And not just in IT.
The stock isn't really a big deal anymore now that the company is stable, more or less. Back in the '90s, however, some preferred stock could mean retiring at age 35. And when the orange-badges started seeing their officemates buying mansions and supercars, despite not having worked all that much harder, they felt the need to get the lawyers involved.
Is this the case? I mean, sure options won't be as lucrative, but RSUs are basically an extra way for companies to compensate employees, and still count as "velvet handcuffs".
If the stock rises, that's magnified, but even while relatively static, RSUs count up.
> Contractors can be cheaper than employees, despite paying a higher salary. The reason is that they don't need to do so much legal work or pay their insurances and etc, etc.
Unless they're independent contractors, I've never understood how this can be true. Sure, the company paying the contracting company doesn't have to directly pay for that kind of thing, but the contracting company does, and on top of that, has to earn a profit, and that should all be included in the billing rate.
Having worked for several subcontractors, I can tell you there's a vast difference between the cost of Microsoft doing HR and a much smaller company doing HR.
Microsoft probably keeps good records and actually has good HR staff.
A lot of subcontractors don't keep very good records, outsource their HR staff to India and aren't against closing up shop and reincorporating with a new name.
Edit: Out of 5 of these companies that I actually needed employment verification from after leaving, only 1 of them could actually locate a record saying I worked from them. I always have to go to pay stubs.
I have contracted with IBM many times over my career, and when the project goes belly-up, the company reorganizes, the division you were working in disappears, and employment contracts aren't renewed. No muss, no fuss, no layoffs.
I believe that Microsoft has more contractors than it does employees. That is just crazy.
Also, it's nearly impossible to fire even the most grossly incompetent people. One person I worked with was a utter flatline and doing negative work (very bad Q/A, argumentative, and the most useless person I have ever had as a coworker. It took six months to fire the guy, and it was no secret to the third and fourth layer management that the guy was a huge mistake.
MS needs to get rid of the right people.