Microsoft has offered a voluntary exit package to about 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce, in a move announced to staff on Monday. The offer is voluntary, and nobody has been told to leave.
The Voluntary Exit Offer was announced in a memo to employees from Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s chief people officer. It is open to staff on participating teams in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and India.
About 60,000 people are eligible, out of a workforce that numbered 223,000 full-time employees as of 30 June 2026. That figure was down from 228,000 a year earlier, before the company’s job cuts in July.
The company says the offer is not a replacement for layoffs, which remain possible. It also says the offer is not a sign that it needs fewer employees. Instead, a company spokesperson described it as one of several ways it is adjusting to changing business needs.
What the offer includes
The package equals Microsoft’s standard severance. It covers base pay linked to tenure and level, continued vesting of stock, healthcare for a fixed period, and career transition help.
There is no age or tenure requirement, and performance does not decide who is eligible. The offer reaches up to level 70 in the company’s staff hierarchy, which covers general managers and some vice presidents, but not corporate vice presidents.
Eligible employees will receive the details by email. They have until the first week of December to decide, and those who accept will leave on 31 December.
Some groups are left out of the offer. Reports say participating groups include Xbox, Copilot, CoreAI, Windows and Devices, finance and human resources, while security, quantum and marketing are excluded. Parts of sales and data centre operations are also outside the programme.
Coleman wrote in the memo that the offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support. She added that it also gives teams another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs.
A smaller take-up is expected
Microsoft has not said how many people it expects to accept the offer. But the company told GeekWire that it expects a much smaller share than the roughly 30% who took its earlier voluntary retirement offer.
That spring offer was the first voluntary retirement programme in the company’s history. It went to about 8,750 longtime employees in the United States only, and about 30% of them accepted.
The new offer is much wider. It covers four countries instead of one, and it reaches staff at higher levels. But it is also less generous than the spring programme, because it does not include the extended healthcare that was a major draw of that scheme.
The result is that the number of people who actually leave is likely to land well below 60,000. The figure counts people who are eligible, not people who are leaving.
Why Microsoft is doing it
The offer comes as Microsoft faces pressure to contain costs while it spends heavily on AI infrastructure. Data centres and the computing power behind AI models cost a great deal of money, and the company is looking for ways to balance that spending.
Microsoft has already cut jobs this year. It cut 4,800 jobs in July, including 3,200 at Xbox, and it cut 268 more Xbox positions in September. It cut more than 15,000 jobs in 2025.
The voluntary offer is the company’s second buyout of 2026, and it signals that Microsoft is not done reshaping its workforce. But it also shows a preference for voluntary departures over forced cuts, at least for now.
For the employees who are eligible, the next few weeks will bring a personal decision. The offer gives them a supported way out if they were already thinking of leaving. For those who stay, the company says the offer changes nothing about their jobs.
The deadline in early December will show how many people take the deal. Until then, the 60,000 figure is best read as the size of the invitation, not the size of the exit.
