Microsoft adds to job cuts; Office attendance edges lower; Restaurant performance improves

Tech giant Microsoft added more than 300 to its previously announced workforce reductions, even as the larger economy showed signs of improvement regarding job openings.

Redmond-based Microsoft plans to cut 305 positions in its home state of Washington, according to state notification filings. Reductions amounting to around 1% of the company’s total workforce come after Microsoft last month announced it was cutting about 6,000 jobs, or 3% of its global workforce totaling more than 220,000.

“We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” Microsoft said in a statement this week. The company joins others across several industries that continue to cut workforces in response to shifting business conditions.

Disney on Tuesday confirmed plans to lay off an unspecified number of workers, reported by several media outlets to be in the hundreds worldwide and affecting multiple divisions, amid ongoing cost-reduction efforts. Burbank, California-based Disney in 2023 announced 7,000 pending job cuts as part of plans to reduce annual expenses by $5.5 billion.

The Labor Department on Tuesday reported overall U.S. job openings totaled about 7.4 million on the last business day of April, up from 7.2 million in March but lower than the 7.6 million for April 2024. Total April hires at 5.6 million and separations at 5.3 million — including layoffs and resignations — were up slightly from March’s 5.4 million hires and 5.2 million separations. 

Office attendance for 10 large U.S. regions averaged 51% of their pre-pandemic level for the week ended May 28, down from 53.1% in the prior week, according to the latest tracking by Kastle Systems.

The security technology firm’s data has shown the 10-city average consistently posting above 51% so far in 2025, as companies and government agencies increase their in-office work requirements. But traffic has struggled to return to the peak 54.5% average posted for the week ended March 5.

Based on anonymous keycard data from Kastle’s office property clients, the latest numbers showed Texas cities remaining in the top three slots for attendance, with Houston at 59.8%, Dallas at 59% and Austin at 58.3%. Next came Chicago at 54%, New York at 50.8% and Washington, D.C., at 50.4%.

Restaurant industry performance posted moderate improvement in April after more than a year of closings, job cuts and bankruptcy filings. But the National Restaurant Association’s latest monthly survey report showed lingering uncertainty among operators about future business conditions.

Based on several metrics including sales and customer traffic, the trade group’s latest overall performance index scored at 99.7 for April, up slightly from 98.9 in March, with numbers below 100 indicating the industry remains in contraction mode. Still, operators overall reported a net monthly increase in same-store sales for the first time in three months, and 45% of operators said sales rose from a year earlier, up from 43% in March.

A separate expectations index, measuring operators’ six-month outlook for sales, employment, capital spending and overall business conditions, posted at 100, up 1.2 points from the prior month. Operators’ expectations for industry stabilization were driven by a somewhat more optimistic outlook for sales, “while their expectation for the overall economy continues to lean pessimistic,” the restaurant group said in a statement.

The trade group noted 50% of operators in the April survey said they made a capital expenditure for equipment, expansion or remodeling during the last three months. That was essentially unchanged from the previous four months of surveys.