微軟裁員18000人規模還不算大?
Microsoft announced plans on Thursday to cut 18,000 jobs, which would be the biggest single layoff round for the tech industry this year. But the size of that layoff doesn’t make it into the list of big-time job losses–at least not when looking at sheer numbers.
微軟（Microsoft）上週四宣佈，計劃砍掉18000個工作崗位。這將是科技行業今年規模最大的一輪裁員。但就絕對數值而言，微軟此輪裁員還沒法跟歷史上最高的幾次記錄相提並論。Following the financial crisis, a number of companies took an axe to payrolls. While the unenviable record for the biggest-ever layoffs goes to IBM for cutting 60,000 jobs in 1993, most of the record-setting layoffs have happened since 2000.
金融危機後，許多企業都進行過裁員。儘管說有史以來規模最大的裁員是IBM在1993年砍掉6萬個職位，但大部分“創紀錄”的裁員，都發生在2000年之後。Microsoft’s competitor Hewlett-Packard has gone through an ongoing series of layoffs since 2008. In May, it announced 16,000 layoffs, though its largest round of job cuts came in December last year when CEO Meg Whitman announced that the company would let go of another 34,000 workers.
微軟的競爭對手惠普（Hewlett-Packard）自2008年以來進行了一系列裁員。今年5月，惠普又宣佈裁員1萬6千人。不過，惠普規模最大的一輪裁員是去年12月份，當時該公司首席執行官梅格o惠特曼宣佈將裁掉3萬4千名僱員。
The superlatives are based on total number of jobs cut. Normalizing the layoffs for the total number of employees gives a different picture.
以上是就裁員的總人數而言。如果計算裁員人數佔僱員總數的比重，則是另一番景象。Below is an image of the same companies from the chart above, adjusted for each company’s headcount at the time of the layoffs.
下圖反映的公司與上圖一樣，只不過展示的是裁員數佔裁員時公司總僱員數的比例。
In this view, Microsoft’s round of cuts ranks as one of the largest. The 18,000 layoffs account for 18.18% of Microsoft’s overall workforce. That’s a greater proportion than Citigroup’s massive 2008 layoffs (14.77% of the company) or IBM’s record-setting job cuts (about 8% of the company) over 20 years ago. Even HP’s combined 50,000 job cuts over recent months are proportionally less: They account for 15.7% of HP’s total workforce.
這樣看，微軟此輪裁員算是規模最大的裁員之一。18000的裁員人數佔到微軟總僱員數的18.18％。這個比例，比花旗集團（Citigroup）在2008年的裁員14.77％，以及IBM在 20多年前的裁員8%創下的紀錄更高。就比例而言，甚至高過惠普過去幾個月高達5萬人規模的大裁員（總裁員比例15.7％）。
