Microsoft has announced a large round of job cuts with workers based in Ireland affected.
The company revealed that it intends to cut around 4,800 roles which is about 2.1% of its global workforce.
Microsoft has revealed that the majority of the job cuts will be in their Xbox gaming and commercial departments.
According to the Journal, the Department of Enterprise confirmed that they have received notice of the redundancies from Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited Company and Microsoft Ireland Research Unlimited Company.
According to a report in RTE, the company employs around 6,000 people in Ireland.
Microsoft’s HR chief Amy Coleman told the Journal that their business is changing because the world around it is changing.
"The way technology is built, deployed, and used is transforming faster than at any point in my time here. Our customers’ needs are shifting, the business models that serve them are shifting, and that means the work itself – what we do, where we focus, and how we’re organised – has to transform too," Coleman said.
Coleman also suggested that the company is likely to let other employees go in other departments in the future. She confirmed that those loosing their job will not be replaced by artificial intelligence, however "AI is changing how work gets done.
"Some of the tasks we do every day can now be automated, and that means we all need to keep learning, keep building new skills, and keep adapting as the work evolves," she continued.
The new head of the gaming division, Asha Sharma said that the business needed a "reset" last month as its profit margin had declined to 3%.
"Excluding Activision Blizzard King, over the past five years, we have spent over $20 billion on ongoing investments in our content, platform and hardware subsidy, but our annual revenue has declined nearly half a billion during that time," Sharma said in a memo published on Microsoft's website.
The exact number of Irish jobs being cut has yet to be revealed.
