NEW DELHI: The economic crunch has reached Big Technology company  Microsoft has become the first tech conglomerate to lay off employees as part of a 'realignment'.

Nearly 1percent of Microsoft's 1,80,000 employees across its offices and product divisions are reportedly affected by the layoffs.

"We only had a few role eliminations today. Like all companies, we regularly assess our business goals and make appropriate structural modifications "Bloomberg was informed by Microsoft in a late-Tuesday statement. The business continued, "We will continue to invest in our business and raise headcount generally in the year ahead.

Microsoft's hiring has slowed in the Office, Teams, and Windows divisions. Microsoft's third-quarter profits were good, with total sales of USD 49.4 billion and a 26 percent increase (year-on- year) in cloud revenue. The Company did, however, lower its expectations for Q4 revenue and profitability last month.

While Tesla, owned by Elon Musk, has been laying off hundreds of workers, Twitter has also reduced its recruiting staff by 30 percent.  Nvidia, Snap, Uber, Spotify, Intel, and Salesforce are a few notable big firms that have reduced hiring.

Oracle, a leading provider of cloud services, reportedly thought of firing thousands of employees recently in order to save up to USD 1 billion through cost-cutting measures.