Microsoft will cut thousands of positions as part of an effort to reorganize the company, The Washington Post reports. The company reportedly began notifying affected employees their jobs were eliminated or under consideration to be cut July 6.
The majority of the layoffs will impact positions outside of the U.S. and will mostly affect employees in the company's sales department. Roughly 40 percent of Microsoft's 121,500 employees worked in sales prior to this round of cuts, according to The Seattle Times.
The job cuts will also reportedly affect employees that support sales staff, such as those in IT, finance and corporate, external and legal affairs departments. There will also be a few layoffs at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wash., The Seattle Times reports.
The layoffs are reportedly part of Microsoft's new strategy to shift its sales focus to cloud services, rather than the company's traditional server and desktop products.
"Microsoft is implementing changes to better serve our customers and partners," Microsoft said in a statement to The Washington Post. "Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis. This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time-to-time, re-deployment in others."
The company confirmed thousands of jobs will be cut, however, it declined to provide The Washington Post with an exact figure. Other reports have said Microsoft will lay off roughly 3,000 employees, according to The Washington Post.