No salary increases for full-time employees this year in Microsoft

Microsoft is not going to offer salary increases to full-time employees, as CEO Satya Nadella told employees in an email on Wednesday. The move is consistent with Microsoft’s efforts to cut costs as revenue growth slows and customers cut costs.

In January, the software maker said it would cut 10,000 jobs, or just under 5% of its workforce.

In recent months, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and other technology companies have also cut their staff.

Last year, because of inflation, Microsoft nearly doubled the budget for merit increases and boosted stock allocations for certain employees. This year, compensation will look more modest.

Nadella said that this year the company will keep the budget of bonuses and promotions, but they will not overpay in the amount in which it was last year, bringing it closer to our historical averages.

Microsoft’s top executives’ performance bonuses will be down considerably from last year.

Nadella also highlighted Microsoft’s efforts to capitalize on the growing artificial intelligence market.

In January, Microsoft announced a multibillion-dollar investment in the startup OpenAI, which uses Microsoft Azure cloud to launch its viral chatbot ChatGPT and provides large language models, such as GPT-4, to support Microsoft applications and many other companies.

Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said last month Microsoft’s capital expenditures would increase quarter over quarter because of investment in Azure AI infrastructure.