Microsoft has offered voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees — more than a quarter of its global workforce — as the software giant works to control staff costs while pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The program, called the Voluntary Exit Offer, was announced to staff on Monday, October 26, 2026, in a memo from Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s executive vice president and chief people officer. It is open to eligible employees in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and India, and it is voluntary: no employee is being forced out under this program, and the company has not set a target for how many people it wants to leave.
What the buyout offer covers
According to the company and reports of the memo, the offer applies to employees at experience level 70 and below in participating teams, a band that includes some senior leaders. Some staff in data centres, sales and marketing are excluded, as are teams that opted out of the program.
Eligible employees were to receive their individual terms by email on Monday. They have until early December to decide, and departures are scheduled for December 31, 2026. The packages are similar to Microsoft’s standard severance arrangements, which this year guaranteed at least 60 days of base pay and, for most staff, ran as high as 39 weeks of base pay depending on seniority and tenure. Microsoft said it expects fewer people to accept this round than in its previous voluntary program, and that it has no plans for another buyout round at present.
Microsoft employed about 223,000 people on a full-time basis as of June 30, 2026, according to its annual filing. The 60,000 eligible employees therefore represent roughly 27 percent of the company’s workforce — a striking share, even though the actual number of departures will depend entirely on how many people choose to accept.
Why Microsoft is doing this now
The buyout offer lands in the middle of an extraordinary spending race. Like its rivals, Microsoft is investing heavily in the data centres, chips and power capacity needed to build and run advanced AI systems, and that spending is drawing scrutiny from investors over whether the returns will justify the cost.
Microsoft reported capital expenditure of $41 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter in July, and analysts expect fiscal first-quarter capital expenditure of about $51 billion. The company has forecast $175 billion in capital expenditure for the 2026 calendar year. It is scheduled to report its latest quarterly results after the stock market closes on Wednesday, October 28, when Wall Street will be watching closely for what the company says about the buyout program and its spending commitments.
Microsoft shares rose about 1 percent on Monday, closing at $530.50, after hitting an all-time high earlier this month.
Not Microsoft’s first workforce reset this year
The Voluntary Exit Offer is the latest in a series of workforce moves at Microsoft this year, but it differs from the earlier rounds in an important way: it is an offer, not a layoff announcement.
Earlier in 2026, Microsoft offered voluntary retirement packages to about 8,750 eligible employees in the United States — roughly 7 percent of its American workforce — and more than 30 percent of them, around 2,600 people, accepted. In July, the company announced it would cut 4,800 jobs, about 2.1 percent of its global workforce, in a round that overhauled its Xbox gaming business.
The new program builds on the earlier retirement offer, Coleman wrote in her memo. ‘The Voluntary Exit Offer reflects an important part of how we’re evolving our approach to change: creating greater flexibility and, where possible, more ways for employees to shape their next chapter,’ she wrote. ‘This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support.’
What it signals for the wider tech industry
Microsoft’s move is a clear sign of how the AI boom is reshaping even the most successful technology companies. The same companies spending record sums on AI infrastructure are simultaneously looking for ways to trim payroll costs and redirect resources toward AI work.
For employees, the offer presents a genuine choice rather than a notice: stay, or leave with financial support and career planning help. For investors, the key question ahead of Wednesday’s earnings report is whether the program meaningfully changes Microsoft’s cost trajectory — or whether it is mainly a way to reshape the workforce while the AI buildout continues at full speed.
What is certain is the scale. A voluntary exit offer extended to more than a quarter of the workforce at one of the world’s most valuable companies is rare, and it underlines just how far Microsoft is willing to go to fund its AI ambitions.