Microsoft reportedly offers voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees
Microsoft is reportedly offering voluntary buyouts to around 60,000 employees as it continues to cut costs and reshape its workforce for artificial intelligence. Business Insider and Bloomberg reported that the offer applies to eligible employees at vice president level and below on selected teams in the United States, Canada, India and the United Kingdom.
Microsoft Chief People Officer Amy Coleman notified employees about the programme in a Monday note. The company had not immediately responded to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
Eligibility varies by team and function
The reports say the offer does not cover every part of Microsoft. Employees working in data centres, sales and marketing are among those excluded. The company is therefore targeting selected teams rather than announcing a company-wide exit programme.
Workers who elect to leave would receive benefits similar to those available in a standard severance package. Coleman described the Voluntary Exit Offer as part of an evolving approach to organisational change, intended to provide flexibility and give eligible people considering a future outside Microsoft an option to make that transition with support.
Workforce changes alongside AI priorities
The reported programme follows a separate buyout offer made earlier this year to retirement-age employees. More than 30% of the roughly 8,750 eligible workers accepted that offer, indicating that Microsoft has already used voluntary departures as one mechanism for changing its workforce.
The current reports place the new proposal in Microsoft’s broader effort to control costs and rework teams for AI. In the context of Microsoft voluntary buyout programme in the United States, the reported expansion shows that voluntary exits remain part of the company’s workforce-change toolkit while eligibility is being defined around particular functions and geographies.
What employers can take from the reports
For business leaders, the practical implication is that voluntary exit programmes require precise operating boundaries. Eligibility rules, exclusions for critical functions and the level of transition support can determine whether a programme changes costs and staffing without disrupting areas the company has chosen to retain.
Microsoft’s reported approach also underlines the value of communicating the purpose of a workforce change directly to employees. Organisations considering similar measures need to identify which roles remain essential, explain who is eligible and prepare continuity plans before departures take effect.