Slowdown: Microsoft to add jobs

PERU: Not everyone is slashing jobs in these grim economic times. Microsoft Corp has no plans to cut back on research spending and plans to add workers in the coming year, senior executive Craig Mundie said.

���Right now we're still on a plan to complete 100 per cent of our college recruitment plan globally,��� he said. ���The ability to get top talent has actually improved��� as the world enters what could be a punishing recession.

Nor is Microsoft, which has 90,000 employees and more than $20 billion in cash on hand, decreasing its global budget for educational programme - which affects 100 countries, said Mundie, the software giant's chief research and strategy officer.

Mundie said in an interview during a 21-nation Pacific Rim economic summit that top management decided a few weeks ago it would slow hiring. But he said its $8 billion research budget wouldn't be trimmed.

���Our position at this point is that we hope to continue to actually still have some growth in our employment through the course of the year. But we're monitoring the situation carefully,'' he said.

Mundie said he believed Microsoft could actually benefit from the global downturn as people decide to hold meetings online rather than get on airplanes - or save on phone costs by relying more on voice-over-Internet technology.

���I think we might see some movement toward those things that have an almost immediate payback in terms of productivity or cost containment,��� he said.

Mundie was attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, whose members account for half the global economy and include China, Japan, the United States and Russia.