Microsoft Wants Their Money Back

This could be a moral test—that has yet to be determined— but Microsoft (News - Alert) wants it’s laid-off employees to give them back some of their severance pay. Now, I’ve never known anyone to give back monies they had received, especially from a severance package but since Microsoft may turn into a bully for this round, it could happen.

 

Lou Gellos, a Microsoft spokesman, would not say how many of the 1,400 workers let go in January were overpaid, or by how much. Microsoft has said severance would be calculated by length of service and position in the company.

 

Microsoft paid the laid-off staffers a minimum of 60 days salary and additional compensation based on the length of their service. In January Microsoft announced that another 3,600 jobs will be cut over the next 18 months. This totals 5,000 jobs, or five percent of Microsoft's total workforce.

 

The Redmond, Washington based software maker is asking former employees for reimbursement, by check or money order, within two weeks, according to a redacted letter posted by the technology blog TechCrunch which Gellos confirmed the letter's authenticity.

 

PC World’s Daniel Ionescu reported that a letter surfaced on the Internet this weekend and Microsoft claims that an "inadvertent administrative error" caused this situation. However, the Ionescu continued, some laid-off workers were underpaid in their severance and Microsoft claims that it is "taking care of underpayments."

 

According to the Associated Press, with the recession biting into sales of Microsoft's core Office and Windows software, Microsoft said in January it would let up to 5,000 of its 94,000 employees go, the only mass layoff in its 34-year history.

 

Shares of Microsoft sank 54 cents, or 3 percent, to $17.46 in afternoon trading amid a broader sell-off Monday.