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It looks like Microsoft will be halting construction of new buildings around its Redmond headquarters. According to SeattlePI.com, an internal powerpoint presentation outlines plans. Joseph Tartakoff reports:

But the presentation shows that in December, Microsoft's Real Estate and Facilities Team developed a scenario to estimate the company's real estate needs under the assumption that the company's work force would not grow for the next 2 1/2 years. Beyond then, the planners expected annual growth of 3 percent.

Last year, Microsoft increased the size of its work force by 16 percent. The company employs more than 94,000 people worldwide, including 40,000 in the Puget Sound region.

Doesn't sound very promising for the next two and a half years does it? Microsoft is expected to announce these changes when it reports second quarter earnings Thursday.

There had been rumors that Microsoft would be laying off workers by January 15th, but nothing has come of that so far. Yahoo on the other hand is cutting 20% of its French staff.

Yahoo's getting rid of 52 out of 251 people from its French headquarters according to Paid Content. This looks to consist mostly of engineers. "This is bittersweet as it was only in September that Yahoo made a song and dance about opening an R&D facility in the latter, an Alps town, at a lavish ceremony involving French government ministers," writes Paid Content's Robert Andrews.

The company is also reportedly getting rid of Content Match in some parts of Europe.