????微軟（Microsoft）上周四宣布，計劃砍掉18000個工作崗位。這將是科技行業今年規模最大的一輪裁員。但就絕對數值而言，微軟此輪裁員還沒法跟歷史上最高的幾次記錄相提并論。

????金融危機后，許多企業都進行過裁員。盡管說有史以來規模最大的裁員是IBM在1993年砍掉6萬個職位，但大部分“創紀錄”的裁員，都發生在2000年之后。

????微軟的競爭對手惠普（Hewlett-Packard）自2008年以來進行了一系列裁員。今年5月，惠普又宣布裁員1萬6千人。不過，惠普規模最大的一輪裁員是去年12月份，當時該公司首席執行官梅格?惠特曼宣布將裁掉3萬4千名雇員。

????以上是就裁員的總人數而言。如果計算裁員人數占雇員總數的比重，則是另一番景象。

????下圖反映的公司與上圖一樣，只不過展示的是裁員數占裁員時公司總雇員數的比例。

????Microsoft announced plans on Thursday to cut 18,000 jobs, which would be the biggest single layoff round for the tech industry this year. But the size of that layoff doesn’t make it into the list of big-time job losses–at least not when looking at sheer numbers.

????Following the financial crisis, a number of companies took an axe to payrolls. While the unenviable record for the biggest-ever layoffs goes to IBM for cutting 60,000 jobs in 1993, most of the record-setting layoffs have happened since 2000.

????Microsoft’s competitor Hewlett-Packard has gone through an ongoing series of layoffs since 2008. In May, it announced 16,000 layoffs, though its largest round of job cuts came in December last year when CEO Meg Whitman announced that the company would let go of another 34,000 workers.

????The superlatives are based on total number of jobs cut. Normalizing the layoffs for the total number of employees gives a different picture.

????Below is an image of the same companies from the chart above, adjusted for each company’s headcount at the time of the layoffs.