Microsoft stunned its investors on Thursday, announcing the first broad layoffs in its history and offering a pessimistic forecast for the second half of its fiscal year.  

“We will continue to manage expenses and invest in long-term opportunities to deliver value to customers and shareholders, and we will emerge an even stronger industry leader than we are today,” said Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive.

Microsoft’s shares dropped $1.50, or 8 percent, to $17.88 in early trading.

For its second quarter, Microsoft posted net income of $4.17 billion – a figure 11 percent lower the $4.71 billion reported in the comparable period last year. Microsoft’s revenue for the quarter rose 2 percent year-over-year to $16.63 billion.

Microsoft’s earnings of 47 cents during the quarter missed the forecast from Thomson Reuters by 2 cents.

The direct impact of falling personal-computer sales, which roiled Intel last week, were evident in Microsoft’s results, as sales of its PC operating-system software dove 8 percent to $3.98 billion from $4.33 billion last year.

Blaming market uncertainty, Microsoft declined to issue a revenue or earnings forecast for the rest of its fiscal year.

“We are planning for economic uncertainty to continue through the remainder of the fiscal year, almost certainly leading to lower revenue and earnings for the second half relative to the previous year,” said Chris Liddell, the company’s chief financial officer.