Microsoft Asks 60,000 Workers to Leave on Their Own Terms

Microsoft Asks 60,000 Workers to Leave on Their Own Terms

A Buyout Offer Lands for a Quarter of the Company

Microsoft on Monday opened a Voluntary Exit Offer to roughly 60,000 employees, about 27 percent of its 223,000 full-time workers counted on June 30. CNBC, citing a person familiar with the matter, first reported the eligibility figure, which Microsoft later confirmed to other outlets. Chief People Officer Amy Coleman announced the program in a memo to staff, writing that it gives eligible employees "a new choice to make that transition now with support." The company stressed that eligibility is not a layoff notice: nobody is being forced out, and Microsoft has not said how many people it expects to accept.

Vice Presidents Included, Sales Teams Spared

The offer covers employees at level 70 and below in participating teams across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and India. That cutoff reaches general managers and some vice presidents but stops short of corporate vice presidents, and age, tenure, and performance play no role. According to The Verge, staff in AI experiences, Copilot, CoreAI, Windows and Devices, Xbox, finance, and human resources are in scope. Participation is decided team by team: GeekWire reports the sales organization is sitting out, along with some engineering groups and corporate functions, while data center, marketing, and security staff are also widely reported as excluded.

Standard Severance Terms, an Early-December Deadline

Business Insider reports the package mirrors Microsoft's standard severance, with base pay scaled to tenure and level, continued stock vesting, health coverage for a fixed period, and career transition help. Eligible employees were to receive their personal terms by email on Monday, and they have until the first week of December to decide, with departures set for later that month. Microsoft told GeekWire that involuntary layoffs remain possible depending on business conditions, so the voluntary program reads as a first resort rather than a final word.

The AI Buildout Is Setting the Budget

The buyouts arrive as Microsoft funnels unprecedented sums into data centers and chips. Fortune notes the company posted $41 billion in capital expenditures for the quarter ending in June and projected about $145.3 billion in spending for fiscal 2026. The New York Times reports revenue of $332 billion for the fiscal year, up 18 percent, with profit up 31 percent to $134 billion, even as heavy AI investment weighs on free cash flow. Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood had already projected in April that overall headcount would decline year over year, and the company supplies cloud capacity to OpenAI, Anthropic, and a long list of others racing to train larger models.

Layoffs Already Cut Deep in Recent Years

Voluntary exits are only the latest tool. Fortune reports Microsoft cut about 4,800 jobs in July, on top of more than 15,000 layoffs in 2025, with the struggling Xbox unit absorbing much of the pain. Engadget notes an earlier buyout round this year covering about 7 percent of its U.S. staff drew only a 30 percent acceptance rate. A separate Voluntary Retirement Program, detailed by Quartz, offered qualifying U.S. workers eight to 39 weeks of base pay plus up to five years of health benefits, with a shared last day of July 1. With earnings due later this week, as Ars Technica notes, investors will soon hear how the company frames this trade: fewer people on the payroll, more concrete poured for AI.