Microsoft offered voluntary exit packages to about 60,000 employees in the United States, Canada, India and Britain, roughly 27% of its global workforce, as it reshapes staffing around artificial intelligence spending.
Microsoft has offered voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees, roughly 27% of its global workforce, in one of the widest workforce moves in the company's history.
The voluntary exit offer, disclosed by chief people officer Amy Coleman in a staff memo published on Monday, is open to eligible employees at vice-president level and below in selected teams in the United States, Canada, India and the United Kingdom. Included divisions include AI experiences, Copilot, Xbox, Windows and Devices, finance and human resources, while data-centre, sales and marketing staff are among those excluded. Microsoft employed about 223,000 people full-time at the end of June. Eligible staff receive severance on terms similar to the company's standard package, with decisions due by early December and approved exits at the end of the year.
Coleman framed the offer as a choice rather than a push, writing that it gives employees considering a future outside the company a supported way to make that transition now. The company described the programme as new and said it would learn from it while helping staff focus on priority work, build skills or find internal roles. The move follows earlier workforce reductions this year, including buyouts offered to retirement-age staff, of which more than 30% of about 8,750 eligible workers accepted.
The scale of the offer is confirmed by the company's memo as reported by the Associated Press, TechCrunch and Bloomberg, and the headcount arithmetic checks out against Microsoft's June filing. What is not yet known is how many of the 60,000 will accept: Microsoft has disclosed no target, so any claim about the eventual number of departures would be speculation, and the reported list of excluded teams varies slightly between outlets.
The offer lands days before Microsoft reports fiscal first-quarter results on Wednesday, when investors will test whether its roughly $175 billion AI and infrastructure spending programme is starting to pay off. Acceptance numbers, when they emerge in December, will show whether this was a large restructuring or a smaller, voluntary reshuffle dressed in a very large offer.