Microsoft offers to buy out a quarter of its workforce

On Monday, Microsoft said it will offer voluntary buyouts to eligible employees in select parts of the company. CNBC reports that the buyouts will be offered to roughly 60,000 employees, or about a quarter of its global workforce. The company describes the offer as an opportunity for employees who may have already been considering career moves outside Microsoft. While Microsoft did not give a direct reason for the buyout package, it comes as the company has spent the last several years managing costs amid investment in AI infrastructure and data-center buildout.

Microsoft will extend the voluntary exit offer (VEO) to qualifying employees in the United States, India, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Microsoft employees at level 70 or below will be eligible for the buyout program. The company’s employee rankings are internal, but according to the salary and career database Levels.fyi, levels 65–67 correspond to principal positions, and 68–70 are at the partner/distinguished level. According to Chief People Officer Amy Coleman, eligible organizations were selected “based on each business’s priorities, customer commitments and workforce needs.”

The effort is the second time Microsoft has run a voluntary workforce reduction in 2026. In April, the company offered its first voluntary retirement package to 8,750 US employees. In July, the Xbox division laid off 3,200 employees, or about 20 percent of its entire gaming division. As reported by CNBC, about 30 percent of eligible employees accepted the retirement offer, lessening the impact of the planned layoffs, according to Coleman. While the offer in April went out to long-tenured employees who might be nearing the end of their career, the VEO expands the effort to a much larger potential pool.

In comments to GeekWire in July, Coleman said Microsoft was looking into making voluntary exits part of workforce management more regularly. She described the current VEO as something that “builds on what we learned earlier this year through the Voluntary Retirement Program.”

While layoffs remain the most common way to reduce headcounts in the tech world, Microsoft may be following Google’s playbook. As Business Insider reported, Alphabet offered employees voluntary exit packages in June and October 2025, and again in February 2026. Now, eligible Microsoft employees may have to decide whether to take a deal now or keep their jobs and face the uncertainty of future company-wide layoffs.

According to Microsoft’s blog, employees eligible for the VEO will be contacted via email on Monday. Microsoft will announce its latest earnings after market close later this week.

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