While Microsoft plans to lay off about 5,000 employees across its various business lines, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said today that the company will be hiring in some areas, including search.
According to ClickZ News:
“Even while we take away 5,000 jobs we will add back a few thousand jobs in areas like search,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft, on a conference call.
Search revenue experienced double-digit growth, display advertising continued to grow, and page views and search queries experienced “healthy engagement growth,” suggesting an increase in queries and impressions per user.
“We continue to see healthy growth in our traffic, both in display and search,” said Bill Koefoed, general manager of investor relations at Microsoft.
As part of its cost-cutting plan, Microsoft will eliminate up to 5,000 jobs in R&D, marketing, sales, finance, legal, HR, and IT over the next 18 months, including 1,400 jobs today.