Tech giant Microsoft has laid off its global ad sales team, according to reports.

The lay-offs come as part of the company’s plan to cut 18,000 jobs, announced by chief executive Satya Nadella earlier this year, and are coming from within the Microsoft Advertising division.

Many individual divisions are now handling their own ad sales.

Staff members across the US, UK and other global offices in charge of selling ad space across Microsoft’s MSN, Bing, Xbox, Outlook, Skype and Windows 8 are thought to be affected.

“We’ve taken another step that will complete almost all the 18,000 reductions announced in July. The reductions happening today are spread across many different business units, and many different countries,” said a Microsoft spokesperson.

Microsoft also recently announced that it will retain the Nokia brand in order to target emerging markets.