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I find percentages plenty useful, arguably more useful than raw numbers. If a company is laying off 3%, it's probably optimizing profits or shutting down failed projects. At 10%, they might be responding to some longer term issue. At 25%, they are in some kind of serious trouble.

3% here and there over multiple years suggests they (feel) they are in some kind of serious trouble.

> I don't know why they make you do the math, or provide such a fuzzy statistic.

Because uncalculated 3% is a smaller number than 6000?

The intended effect may have been the opposite. Maybe many people thing Microsoft is a much larger company and that 3% sounds more significant than 6000.

The WARN act website lists the number at 1,985 employees.

https://esd.wa.gov/employer-requirements/layoffs-and-employe...

Does that account for global layoffs? Or onlu US layoffs

Per that link it appears to just be the number for Redmond, WA, USA.