Microsoft Offers Voluntary Buyouts to About 60,000 Employees

Microsoft has offered voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce, in its latest move to reshape staffing as it pours tens of billions of dollars into artificial intelligence infrastructure. The Voluntary Exit Offer, announced in a memo to staff on Monday 26 October, covers participating teams in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and India.

Eligible employees must decide by the first week of December, and those who accept will leave the company on 31 December, CNBC and GeekWire reported.

Who Is Eligible for Microsoft’s Voluntary Exit Offer?

In her memo, published on the Official Microsoft Blog, chief people officer Amy Coleman said the offer is open to eligible employees in participating teams at level 70 and below, Microsoft’s internal experience grade. Not every part of the company is taking part: “Some organizations are providing the Voluntary Exit Offer, and some are not,” she wrote, with participation depending on each business’s priorities, customer commitments and workforce needs.

CNBC, citing a person familiar with the matter, put the number of eligible staff at about 60,000, about 27% of Microsoft’s 223,000 employees. GeekWire reported that the offer, unlike earlier programmes, also reaches some executives.

What Does the Buyout Package Include?

According to GeekWire, the package is equivalent to Microsoft’s standard severance. It includes:

• Base pay calculated on tenure and level.
• Continued stock vesting for a period.
• Healthcare coverage for a fixed period.
• Career transition services and planning support.

It does not include the extended healthcare that was a major draw of the voluntary retirement programme earlier this year. Coleman said the new offer “gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support”.

Why Is Microsoft Doing This Now?

The offer is the latest in a series of workforce changes in 2026. In April, Microsoft launched its first voluntary retirement programme, for which about 7% of US employees were eligible; GeekWire said roughly 30% of those eligible took it. In July, the company announced 4,800 layoffs. Microsoft told GeekWire it expects a much smaller take-up for the new offer.

The backdrop is the cost of AI. Microsoft has said capital expenditure for the September quarter should exceed $50 billion, compared with $34.9 billion a year earlier, as it builds data centres to supply cloud computing to customers including OpenAI and Anthropic, CNBC reported. A company spokesperson told GeekWire the offer is not a sign that Microsoft needs fewer employees, but one of several ways it is adjusting to changing business needs.

What Should Eligible Employees Consider?

Anyone weighing a buyout typically looks at the size of the payment against the cost of a job search, healthcare and the loss of future stock awards. It is worth checking your finances before deciding; our guides on how to build an emergency fund, CV vs résumé and how to find legitimate remote jobs can help with a next step.

What Does It Mean for Tech Jobs?

Microsoft is the latest large employer to rework its workforce as AI changes how work is done. Read our coverage of AI-linked job cuts at American Express and Barclays, EA’s BioWare closure and job cuts and Anthropic’s IPO filing, plus our explainer on the skills you need as AI spreads.

Featured image: Coolcaesar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Building 92 on Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, campus; file photo. Image licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sources

• Official Microsoft Blog — Introducing a Voluntary Exit Offer (26 October 2026).
• CNBC — Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees as AI leads to efficiency push (26 October 2026).
• GeekWire — Microsoft makes new ‘voluntary exit’ offer to about a quarter of its workforce, including some execs (26 October 2026).
• NBC News — Microsoft offers buyouts to around 60,000 employees (26 October 2026).