Microsoft: shedding jobs... but still hiring

As reported here earlier, Microsoft announced that they would experience 5,000 job cuts in the next 18 months.

Even though Microsoft achieved a net profit of $4.17 billion for the last quarter of 2008, this figure was down significantly from the same period in 2007, and led the company to announce it was shedding thousands of jobs. Cross Research analyst Richard Williams notes,"Microsoft has never had a layoff like this in my knowledge, and it's sending a signal that the times are definitely changing."

Steve Ballmer too admitted that things look bad for the economy, saying, "I'm thinking the bottom is deep, but less deep than the 1929 bottom, for example. The economy goes down and stays down, then you start to get slow growth again in a few years."

Still, the company has announced that it is looking to hire new staff across a range of areas, including coders, human resources personnel, accountants, and marketing and advertising executives.

Interestingly, some of these newly opened positions are in job areas in which the company is experiencing cuts.