Covid-19: Microsoft employees to get $1,500 as pandemic bonus this year
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: More than 175,000 employees of Microsoft Corporation will get a ‘pandemic bonus’ of USD 1,500 (Rs. 1.12 lakh) this year.
“It’s a gift of around USD 200 million or less than two days’ worth of profit for Microsoft”.
The multinational behemoth announced it, in recognition of a challenging fiscal year that the technology giant has just completed, media reports said on Friday, citing an internal memo of the company.
Microsoft is gifting the bonus to all staff members below the Corporate Vice President level that started on or before March 31, 2021.
It will also include part-time workers and those on hourly rates.
“Microsoft’s chief people officer, Kathleen Hogan, announced the gift to employees today, and it will apply to all eligible employees in both the US and internationally,” the reports said.
Worldwide, Microsoft has 175,508 employees.
However, employees of its subsidiaries LinkedIn, GitHub, and ZeniMax are not eligible for the pandemic bonus, the report added.
Earlier, Facebook gifted its 45,000 employees USD 1,000 each, and Amazon gave USD 300 as a holiday bonus for frontline workers.
Microsoft had announced to delay the reopening of its offices till September, after it started to slowly reopen Redmond, Washington-based headquarters and nearby campuses from March 29 with a six-stage hybrid workplace strategy.
Currently, Microsoft work sites in 21 countries have been able to accommodate additional workers in its facilities – representing around 20 percent of its global employee population.
