Microsoft offers buyouts to 60,000 employees

According to The Verge, Microsoft is offering voluntary exit packages to up to 60,000 employees across the US, UK, Canada and India, out of roughly 223,000 total staff. Chief people officer Amy Coleman told employees the program lets people leave with financial support and career planning help, as the company tries to cut staff without another round of layoffs.

This comes just months after Microsoft laid off 4,800 people, mainly in Xbox and commercial sales. Fortune has reported that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is planning more layoffs. At this scale, this isn't trimming. It's a reshaping of one of the biggest employers in tech.

We'll give Microsoft some credit. A voluntary exit with money and support is more humane than a surprise layoff email. People get to choose. Microsoft also says the offer isn't based on age, tenure or performance, which is broader and fairer than the retirement program it offered earlier this year to about 9,000 long-serving US staff.

But voluntary programs have a known flaw: the people most likely to take the money are often the ones with the best options elsewhere. Companies can lose strong people and keep the ones who feel stuck. And voluntary rarely stays voluntary if not enough people raise their hands. Microsoft says it may run more of these where there is a business and workforce need. That reads like a door left open.

The eligibility map is the real story. The Verge's sources say staff in AI experiences, Copilot, CoreAI, Windows + Devices, Xbox, finance and HR are eligible. Cloud + AI and MicrosoftAI are partly in. Security, marketing, commercial business, and discovery and quantum are out. Including Copilot and CoreAI is striking for a company that has bet so much on AI. The likelier read is that Microsoft wants different AI teams and skills, not fewer AI ambitions, but the details aren't public.

Where this leads matters beyond Microsoft. If a company this profitable is cutting tens of thousands of eligible roles while pouring money into AI infrastructure, others will copy the move. I'm watching how many people accept, whether layoffs follow anyway, and whether Microsoft says openly how much of this is about AI changing the work itself.

Microsoft has cut staff repeatedly in recent years. Earlier in 2026 it offered a voluntary retirement program to US employees at certain levels whose age plus years of service totaled 70 or more. Coleman's memo calls the new offer new for the company and says it will learn from it.