Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts to up to 60,000 employees across the US, UK, Canada, and India, in one of the largest voluntary exit programmes the company has ever run. The offer gives staff the chance to leave with financial support and career planning resources, as Microsoft looks to trim its workforce without another round of layoffs.
Microsoft (Credits: The Verge)
In a message to employees, Microsoft chief people officer Amy Coleman wrote that the programme gives staff “the opportunity to leave Microsoft with financial support and career planning resources”. The company says the offer is not based on age, length of service, or performance.
Microsoft Buyouts: Who Is Eligible for 60,000 Offers
Sources familiar with the situation told The Verge that staff across Microsoft are eligible, including those in AI experiences, Copilot, CoreAI, Windows + Devices, Xbox, finance, and human resources teams. Microsoft’s cloud + AI and MicrosoftAI teams, along with corporate, external, and legal affairs, are partially participating.
Employees on Microsoft’s marketing, commercial business, discovery and quantum, and security teams are not participating in this round, according to the report. The buyout offer reaches more of Microsoft’s roughly 223,000 employees than any previous voluntary programme.
“The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us,” Coleman wrote in a memo to employees. “We’ll learn from it. At the same time, we’ll keep helping people focus on the work that matters most, build new skills and, where it makes sense, find new opportunities across Microsoft.”
Microsoft Buyouts Follow 4,800 Layoffs
The voluntary exit offers come just months after Microsoft laid off 4,800 employees, a move that primarily impacted its Xbox and commercial sales teams. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is also planning new rounds of layoffs, according to a report from Fortune.
This offer is different from the voluntary retirement programme Microsoft offered long-serving employees earlier this year. That earlier offer was available to around 9,000 US employees at a certain level whose combined years of service added to their age totalled 70 or more.
Microsoft also told employees it may consider a future voluntary exit offer “where there is a business and workforce need”. For now, the message is clear: the company is reshaping its workforce around AI and core priorities, and it is asking tens of thousands of staff to decide whether their future lies inside Microsoft — or elsewhere.
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Source: The Verge AI — read the full story there.
