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Oops: Microsoft overpays former employees, requests refunds

Written by Phil Meza
Sunday, 22 February 2009
Last month, Microsoft began their massive 18-month long, 5,000-person lay-off plan by axing approximately 1,400 employees from the company. The Gamerscore Blog community team, Games for Windows test group and the *entire Flight Simulator-developing ACES studio* were included, and just recently lay-offs were reported to have hit Banjo-Kazooie developer Rare. If that wasn't, uh, unfortunate enough for the affected staffers, how about this? "An inadvertent administrative error"on Microsoft's part overpaid some of the now-former employees' severance, and they are now being 'requested' to "repay the overpayment," or face a relatively large monetary fine (ie: tax hit). Ouch. In an unknown number of letters that were sent to employees this week (one of which was acquired by TechCrunch), Microsoft 'sincerely apologizes' for the "inconvenience" and, oddly, does not even explain how the error occurred. Employees affected are simply advised to contact Microsoft's HR department for details. Microsoft have confirmed that the letters are in fact legitimate, but are not commenting on the issue any further, saying it is a "private matter." I think Kotaku puts it best by saying that it's ironic that those that manged to avoid the job axe... are the ones that have screwed the pooch here. Sad and unfortunately timed news, indeed.
Last Updated ( Monday, 23 February 2009 )