Microsoft Temps Adjust to Reality of Deteriorating Paycheck

Temping has never been the most rewarding of vocations–especially at Microsoft. Soon it will be even less so. In an effort to adjust to the “realities of a deteriorating economy,” the company is slashing contractor pay rates. Microsoft (MSFT) is reducing by 10 percent the amount it pays on current temporary labor assignments and by 15 percent the amount it will pay on assignments made after March 2. “We held discussions with some of the impacted agencies and settled on the 10% reduction based on the economic climate and the need to achieve greater cost reductions,” a Microsoft spokesman said in a statement.

The move comes a month after the announcement of the first major layoffs in the company’s 30-year history and a few days after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s “you don’t ‘beat’ the economy, you ‘manage’ it” pronouncement. Manage it, indeed.