all these tech companies hired so much people during covid and are now going back to pre covid headcounts
shyt, you can take the "tech" off that, breh. I work for one of the larger logistics companies, and the exact same thing happened to us. Companies capitalized on the pandemic, and staffed accordingly. Now that things are starting to cool off, companies are seeing that the increased headcount didn't necessarily equate to increased productivity and revenues.
Microsoft is no different, and aside from the unfortunate timing, this really doesn't have much at all to do with the Activision purchase.