Software maker Microsoft is almost through with its January-proposed $1.5 billion cost-cutting endeavor, having notified over 3,000 of its employees on Tuesday that their jobs were being terminated. In the beginning of the year, the company had announced its intentions of slashing 5,000 jobs by June 2010, and had laid-off 1,400 workers in the first round.

A large part of the lay-offs in both the rounds came from Microsoft’s research and development, finance, sales, marketing, legal, human resources and IT operations’ departments. Though a majority of the January job-cuts were from the US - the first companywide layoff in its history -, the second round was divided more or less uniformly between US and overseas workers.

In addition to the already-executed job-cuts, Microsoft - giving an explicit indication of the recession-hit economy further eroding the company’s revenue – said that it might continue with its job-cuts’ binge with more lay-offs in the coming months!

Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft CEO, has informed the employees of the company’s plans with regard to the lay-offs to save costs. In a memo to the employees, Ballmer said: “As we move forward, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure including additional job eliminations.”