Microsoft laid off another 2,100 employees from around the country Thursday, and announced the closure of its research lab on it Mountain View, California campus. It was the second wave of layoffs in the 18,000-person purge the company announced in July.
A total of 747 people were laid off in Microsoft's Puget Sound location, and 160 were laid off in various California cities.
Microsoft laid off 50 people in the Mountain View R&D facility, and transferred the rest to another R&D lab in Redmond, Washington, Microsoft spokesman Bill Schultz told VentureBeat.
The research lab on the Mountain View campus was involved in doing basic research on new technologies that aren't necessarily close to becoming products. The lab worked on distributed systems and privacy technology.
The layoffs come as Microsoft is struggling to make its transition to a mobile-first world. So the departure of new product research talent might seem counterintuitive. The layoffs are part of a strategic rebalancing that new CEO Satya Nadella designed.
Many of the first round of 13,000 layoffs in July were former Nokia employees in the U.S. and in Finland. More of the 18,000 layoffs may come later this year.