Microsoft offers 60,000 employees a voluntary exit package

On Monday, October 26, Microsoft's chief people officer, Amy Coleman, shared a letter about the new offer. Microsoft posted it on its corporate blog. Eligible employees were told to expect an email with the details the same day, Tom's Hardware reports.

The offer is for people "who may be considering a future outside the company." They get a chance to leave with financial support and career planning help. Nobody has to take it.

Microsoft says the offer is voluntary, so staying is a perfectly normal choice.

Coleman also said, in her note to staff: "The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us. We'll learn from it."

Microsoft told The Register that 60,000 employees in four countries are eligible:

• United States
• Canada
• India
• United Kingdom

Eligibility depends on a company scale called employment level. Coleman's note says people up to level 70 can apply. The Register says that means everyone at or below the vice president level.

Not every team is taking part. Coleman wrote that "some organizations are providing the Voluntary Exit Offer, and some are not." She said participation depends on each business's priorities, customer commitments and workforce needs.

By the numbers: Microsoft had about 223,000 employees in June 2026, according to its last annual report. Tom's Hardware puts the 60,000 at about 27% of that total. CNET and TechRadar call it about a quarter.

Microsoft would not say which roles or teams are covered. Other outlets filled in some of the picture.

Bloomberg, as cited by CNET and Semafor, reports that Xbox, Windows, Copilot and finance are included. Copilot is Microsoft's AI assistant.

Bloomberg also reports that some groups are left out. CNET lists certain data center, sales and marketing staff. Semafor adds cybersecurity and quantum computing, which is research into a very different kind of computer.

Semafor's take is that the groups a company protects often show what it sees as most important. Investors will likely ask about that when Microsoft reports earnings on Wednesday.

Microsoft did not publish a price list. It told The Register the money and career help are similar to a standard severance deal. Severance is the pay a company gives a worker who leaves. Some employees can also get extended healthcare and stock shares.

TechRadar reports more detail. It says people with a score of 65 to 67 get two weeks of pay for every six months at the company. It says those below 65 get one week for every six months.

TechRadar also reports extra help such as healthcare coverage, outplacement support (help finding a new job) and extended stock vesting. Vesting is the schedule that decides when stock a company promised you becomes yours. These details come from TechRadar's report, not from a Microsoft page we could read.

In real life Picture a company handing out a map with a marked exit door. Some people will walk through. Most will keep working. Nobody gets pushed.

Microsoft said it has no target number. It also told The Register it does not expect everyone to accept.

The Register points to Google. In 2025 Google made a similar offer, and between three and five percent of eligible staff took it. If Microsoft sees the same rate, the paper says, 1,800 to 3,000 people could accept before the window closes on December 31.

That is The Register's own estimate, not a Microsoft forecast. CNET also says the number of acceptances is likely to be smaller than the number of people who were offered the deal.

This is not Microsoft's first offer of this kind. In April the company launched its first voluntary retirement program. It was open to employees whose age plus years at Microsoft added up to more than 70.

Outlets describe that program differently. The Register says it applied to around 9,000 employees. Tom's Hardware says it covered about 7% of US staff and that more than 30% of those eligible took it.

The Register adds that Microsoft heard from other staff who would have taken the April offer if they had been eligible. Microsoft says this feedback is why the new offer is wider.

What's next: Microsoft also cut about 4,800 roles since its June annual report, The Register says. CNET reports that Xbox cut 1,600 employees in July, and another round is expected before June 2027.

Microsoft says no. It told The Register the phrase "changing needs" is not a polite way of saying that AI is taking jobs. It says the deal reflects the success of the April program.

Other outlets see a link to spending. A data center is a huge building full of computers that run cloud services and AI. CNET reports that Microsoft invested about $116 billion in property and equipment in the 2026 fiscal year, mostly for cloud and AI capacity. That is about $50 billion more than the year before.

The same report says Microsoft's operating income rose by about $30 billion between the two years. So this is not a company that is short of money. Tom's Hardware reads the offer as a way to balance the books while AI spending climbs.

Tom's Hardware adds some scale. It says Microsoft's Fairwater data center in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, is now running. It also says Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta have together spent more than $1 trillion on AI infrastructure since 2023.

Coleman describes the offer as part of how Microsoft is "evolving our approach to change." She says it gives employees "greater flexibility" and, where possible, more ways to shape their next chapter.

The catch: nobody outside Microsoft has seen the internal numbers. These explanations are reporters' readings, and Microsoft's own explanation is the one above.

CNET cites the Stanford HAI Digital Economy Lab. It found that employment in jobs exposed to AI, such as software development and customer experience, has fallen by more than 4% this year.

CNET adds that AI may not yet be removing jobs at scale. But companies are spending billions on computing power while hiring far more carefully.

Semafor notes that AI already wrote about 30% of Microsoft's code a year and a half ago. It says Meta, Google and Amazon have also made big staffing cuts.

• If you work at Microsoft in these countries: check your email and ask your manager whether your team is taking part. You have until December 31 to decide.
• If you use Microsoft products: nothing changes today. Windows, Xbox and Copilot keep running, though teams in those groups may get smaller.
• If you work in tech: the offer shows that big companies are weighing hiring against spending on AI computers.
• If you are weighing a similar offer elsewhere: read the terms closely and ask what support you would get.