We've known since last month that Microsoft added 10,000 new employees in fiscal 2006, but until now we haven't had more detail about what types of jobs were added.

That's where the company's annual 10K filing last week comes in. Comparing the categorical employment data in that report and the same report last year, here's how things break down: There were roughly 4,000 net additions in product research and development (a 17 percent increase in that category); 3,000 in sales and marketing (17 percent); 1,000 in product support and consulting (8 percent); and 2,000 in general and administration (40 percent).

Here's the raw data showing Microsoft employment by category in each of the past three years. One thing that stands out is the lack of net growth in product research and development jobs between 2004 and 2005. It raises the question of how much of the hiring this past year was necessary to compensate for that earlier lack of growth. (At the same time, there may well have been some small growth in that category from 2004 to 2005, but the company's practice of expressing the numbers in thousands makes it unclear.)

Of course, the latest numbers probably won't satisfy people looking for very specific detail on where the jobs were added. But the five categories are as specific as Microsoft gets in publicly breaking down its overall employment figures.

Microsoft previously lumped the numbers into bigger categories. Here's what the trend looks like going back to 1994, if you adapt the 2004-06 stats to match those former categories by combining sales, marketing and support into one.

Update: The filing also lists the percentage increase in headcount in each of the company's seven divisions in fiscal 2006. The catch is that it doesn't give the actual headcount numbers. But here are the percentage gains: