Microsoft offers buyouts to 60,000 staff, about 27% of its workforce
What's the deal? Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees — roughly 27% of its global workforce — as it ramps up spending on artificial intelligence. The Voluntary Exit Offer, announced Monday in a memo, covers eligible staff on select teams in the US, Canada, India, and the UK at vice president level and below.
Who's in, who's out? Employees focused on data centers, sales, and marketing are excluded. The package matches Microsoft's standard severance — base pay by tenure and level, continued stock vesting, fixed-period healthcare, and career transition services — and workers have until early December to decide.
Why now? Microsoft is under pressure to hold down costs as it pours tens of billions of dollars into AI and data-center infrastructure. CFO Amy Hood said the company now expects to spend $175 billion on AI infrastructure in the 2026 calendar year.
What's the context? It is the company's second voluntary buyout this year, following a spring retirement program — its first ever — that about 30% of eligible staff accepted. Microsoft also cut 4,800 jobs in July, about 2% of its workforce, hitting its Xbox division hard.
The offer is not an expected tally of departures. Microsoft declined to give a target but said it anticipates a far smaller share than the retirement program drew. "This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support," chief people officer Amy Coleman wrote.
By the numbers: Microsoft had 223,000 employees globally at the end of June, down from 228,000 a year earlier. The company reports quarterly earnings later this week.
The signal: Buyouts remain rare among big tech firms, which have leaned on layoffs, stricter reviews, and return-to-office mandates to thin ranks. Amazon, Microsoft, AlphabetDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Meta are collectively on track to spend roughly $700 billion on AI infrastructure this year — a reshaping of headcount that is now spreading to the executive tier.
Read more: CNBC, AP News, The Verge, Reuters
Image credit: Coolcaesar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
