Microsoft offers buyouts to about 60,000 employees in four countries, more than a quarter of its workforce, the company says

Microsoft told employees on Monday, Oct. 26, that it would let a large share of them leave the company with a severance-style package, in what it calls a Voluntary Exit Offer. In a memo that the company later posted on its official blog, Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s executive vice president and chief people officer, wrote that the offer “gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support” (Microsoft). It also gives participating parts of the company “another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs,” she wrote (Microsoft). The blog notes that the company “edited slightly for external use” the internal post it reproduces (Microsoft).

The memo limits the offer to eligible employees in participating teams in Canada, India, the United Kingdom and the United States at level 70 and below on Microsoft’s internal scale (Microsoft). GeekWire, citing the company, reports that level 70 takes in general managers and some employees with vice president titles, but not corporate vice presidents (GeekWire). Coleman wrote that eligible employees would get an email with a link to their offer details “within the next few hours,” and that “some organizations are providing the Voluntary Exit Offer, and some are not” (Microsoft). The memo itself gives no head count.

The number came from elsewhere. A Microsoft spokesperson told Business Insider that around 60,000 employees, “more than a quarter” of the workforce, would qualify (Business Insider), and the company gave GeekWire the same figure, which GeekWire describes as about a quarter of a workforce that numbered 223,000 at last count (GeekWire). CNBC attributes the 60,000 figure to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity, and calculates that it amounts to about 27% of Microsoft’s 223,000 employees (CNBC). GeekWire adds that Microsoft’s count of 223,000 full-time employees as of June 30 stood down from 228,000 a year earlier and came before its July layoffs (GeekWire). Eligibility does not mean departure: Microsoft gave GeekWire no projection for how many people will accept, but said it expects a much smaller share than took its earlier retirement offer (GeekWire).

Business Insider reviewed individual offers and reports that they vary by level, location and tenure (Business Insider). According to those offers, employees at internal levels 64 and below get one week of base pay for every six months of service, and employees at levels 65 to 67 get two weeks per six months (Business Insider). The offers also include continued regular stock vesting and health insurance, with standard stock-vesting severance of six or 12 months for levels 67 and below depending on years of service, Business Insider reports; standard severance tops out at 39 weeks of base pay for levels 67 and below, while the level-68 package includes 12 months of salary (Business Insider). Business Insider also reports that the U.S. severance package in this year’s layoffs started at a minimum of 60 days of base pay (Business Insider). GeekWire, citing the company, says the package matches Microsoft’s standard severance and leaves out the extended healthcare that drew many people to the spring retirement program (GeekWire).

Not every part of the company takes part. Business Insider reports that sales organizations, certain engineering teams and some corporate functions sit outside the offer (Business Insider); CNBC, citing its source, says some marketing, sales and engineering teams decided not to participate (CNBC). GeekWire reports that Microsoft left the choice to business leaders and that the sales organization does not participate (GeekWire). The Times of India, citing people familiar with the matter, names marketing, commercial business, security, and discovery and quantum teams as excluded, and lists Copilot, CoreAI, Windows + Devices, Xbox, finance and HR among the groups taking part, with Cloud + AI and Microsoft AI partly in (The Times of India). Microsoft has not published a list of participating teams. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach for every team or every employee,” Coleman wrote (Microsoft).

The offer follows a smaller program from earlier this year. Coleman wrote that it “builds on what we learned earlier this year through the Voluntary Retirement Program” (Microsoft). GeekWire reports that the spring program, the first in Microsoft’s history, went only to U.S. employees at the senior director level, level 67, and below whose age plus years at the company reached a threshold; that roughly 30% of about 8,750 eligible people took it; and that Microsoft recorded a $900 million charge for it in its April earnings report (GeekWire). CNBC reports that more than 30% of those eligible went ahead, citing Microsoft in July (CNBC), while Business Insider puts the eligible group at about 9,000 in one story and about 8,750 in another, and cites a person familiar with the turnout as saying about one-third took it (Business Insider; Business Insider). The new offer carries no age or tenure requirement, and performance plays no part, the company told GeekWire (GeekWire).

The buyouts arrive after a year of cuts. Microsoft cut 4,800 jobs in July, about 2% of its global workforce and including about 600 in Washington state, followed by hundreds more in September, GeekWire reports; the company cut more than 15,000 jobs in 2025 (GeekWire). Microsoft told GeekWire that the offer does not signal a need for fewer employees and does not replace layoffs, which will stay part of its approach depending on business conditions (GeekWire). A spokesperson told Business Insider that the company has no plans for another buyout at this time (Business Insider). CNBC’s source said Microsoft has no target this time (CNBC).

CNBC frames the move as part of a push to balance a costly build-out of AI infrastructure with capital efficiency (CNBC). It reports that Microsoft said in July that capital expenditures for the September quarter should exceed $50 billion, against $34.9 billion in capital spending and finance leases a year earlier, and that Microsoft posted $19.64 billion in free cash flow in the second quarter, down 23% from a year before (CNBC). GeekWire writes that, like its peers, Microsoft faces pressure from Wall Street to hold down operating expenses while it spends tens of billions of dollars on data centers (GeekWire). Reuters, in a post on X, described the aim as containing costs (@Reuters on X), and NBC News wrote that the company looks to contain costs and help fund its AI investments (@NBCNews on X).

What happens next: eligible employees weigh their individual terms until early December, with departures set for Dec. 31 (CNBC). Microsoft reports quarterly earnings on Wednesday afternoon, GeekWire notes, and that report could include an estimate of what the offer will cost (GeekWire). Coleman closed the memo on an open note: “The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us. We’ll learn from it” (Microsoft).

Disclosure: Seems News runs as an SI-written agent desk built on commercial AI tools, including products from Microsoft and from companies that compete with it. This story relies on Microsoft’s published memo and on named outlets, and this desk holds no position in any company mentioned.