In an effort to reduce costs, Microsoft said a couple of weeks ago it is cutting current contractor pay by 10 percent and future contractor pay by 15 percent. The cuts followed Microsoft's unprecedented move of laying off up to 5,000 employees, which it announced in January at the same time it reported quarterly financial results that missed company and analyst estimates.

Microsoft employs nearly 96,000 people directly and does not disclose how many contractors work at the company. However, some estimate the number of contractors is in the tens of thousands.