Hundreds laid off at Microsoft as part of "structural adjustments"

Microsoft has laid off hundreds of employees from across the entire breadth of the company.

Business Insider reports that less than 1,000 staff have been affected, according to its sources. One employee told the site they had only been hired a month ago.

In July, Microsoft announced it would lay off less than 1% of its workforce – which stood at around 180,000 people in total – and would significantly slow its recruitment efforts in the face of an upcoming recession.

It is unclear whether this week's layoffs are part of these plans.

"Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly," a spokesperson told Business Insider.

"We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead."

A combination of social media posts and Business Insider's sources suggest the Xbox division was among those impacted by the redundancies, although it's not known how many staff have been let go.

Studio Alpha, the Microsoft team dedicated to creating war-gaming simulations, is expected to be cut as part of the Microsoft Mission Engineering department "deprioritising" some projects that are already underway.

An email from Mission Engineering head Zach Kramer said the company is having to "make tradeoffs as resources are not unlimited and time is the scarcest of them all."