Microsoft drops redundancy payment demands

 

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By Stuart Turton and Reuters

Posted on 24 Feb 2009 at 08:30

Microsoft has been forced into an embarrassing U-turn after it attempted to recoup redundancy money from 25 fired workers it mistakenly overpaid.

The company, which announced a plan to cut up to 5,000 jobs in January, acknowledged on Sunday that it had tried to get the overpaid workers to return the extra money. But late on Monday, it reversed course after an internet uproar.

"Last week, 25 former Microsoft employees were informed that they were overpaid as a part of their severance payments from the company," the company says.

"This was a mistake on our part. We should have handled this situation in a more thoughtful manner. We are reaching out to those impacted to relay that we will not seek any payment from those individuals."

The company did not say what caused the original error in which a handful of workers were overpaid by $5,000. Microsoft would say only that it was an "administrative error".

The world's largest software maker, feeling the downturn in corporate and consumer spending, laid off 1,400 workers last month, the first of the up to 5,000 jobs it plans to cut over the next 18 months.