Mashable: This comes only days after the business introduced an unlimited leave policy.

According to a report from Sky News today, Microsoft plans to lay off up to 11,000 employees in the next few days, with Bloomberg and The Verge reporting that the layoffs will be disclosed as soon as today (January 18), before the company's quarterly earnings.

According to Bloomberg, Microsoft's engineering departments will be announcing a number of layoffs tomorrow. They are "much larger" than Microsoft's 1% employee reduction from the previous year. Consulting and customer-partner solutions roles were among those lost in the prior round of layoffs. Sky News hints at roughly 5% of its total of 220,000 workforce, which if accurate would equate to approximately 11,000 jobs.

Microsoft, like many other large technology companies, is cutting jobs as a result of the looming economic situation. This comes only days after the business introduced an unlimited leave policy. Managers at Microsoft will soon be able to grant their staff unlimited "Discretionary Time Off," and employees who have a remaining vacation balance will get a lump sum payment in April.

The layoffs are happening only a few short weeks after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicted a difficult two years for the tech industry. Nadella told CNBC that technology firms need to be efficient and that Microsoft isn't "immune to the global changes."