It's roughly six thousand people's jobs (estimated base on headcount from last year), for anyone wondering. I don't know why they make you do the math, or provide such a fuzzy statistic.
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.
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.
