The cuts are expected to be announced early next month, following the end of Microsoft’s financial year, according to people familiar with the matter. The reductions would not exclusively affect sales teams, and the timing could still change, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss a private matter.
The company declined to comment.
The terminations would follow a previous round of lay-offs in May that hit 6,000 people and fell hardest on product and engineering positions, largely sparing customer-facing roles like sales and marketing.
In April, the company told employees it planned to use third-party firms to handle more sales of software to small and mid-size customers.
Microsoft has said it regularly re-evaluated the organisational structure to make sure it was investing for growth. As the company spends tens of billions of dollars on servers and data centres, executives have pledged to Wall Street, and warned employees, that it would keep a lid on spending in other areas.
