TechAINewsMicrosoft offers buyouts to 60,000 employeesMicrosoft’s buyout offer is reaching more of its 223,000 or so employees.Microsoft’s buyout offer is reaching more of its 223,000 or so employees.by Emma Roth and Tom WarrenOct 26, 2026, 3:58 PM UTCShareGiftImage: Cath Virginia / The VergePart OfThe tech industry’s layoffs and hiring freezes: all of the newssee all updates Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts to up to 60,000 employees across the US, UK, Canada, and India. In a message to employees, Microsoft chief people officer Amy Coleman writes that this gives staff members “the opportunity to leave Microsoft with financial support and career planning resources” as the company looks to trim staff without another round of layoffs.Sources familiar with the situation tell The Verge that staffers across Microsoft are eligible for the voluntary exit offers, including those in its AI experiences, Copilot, CoreAI, Windows + Devices, Xbox, finance, and human resources teams. Microsoft’s cloud + AI, MicrosoftAI teams, and corporate, external, and legal affairs are partially participating, the sources say. Meanwhile, employees on Microsoft’s marketing, commercial business, discovery and quantum, and security teams aren’t participating.The voluntary exit offers come just months after Microsoft laid off 4,800 employees, a move that primarily impacted its Xbox and commercial sales teams.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is also planning new rounds of layoffs, according to a report from Fortune.This voluntary exit offer doesn’t target Microsoft’s commercial sales teams, and it’s also very different to the previous voluntary retirement program that the company offered long-serving employees earlier this year. That previous offer was only available to around 9,000 employees, for US employees at a certain employee level whose combined years of service added to their age totaled 70 or more.“The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us,” Coleman writes in a memo to employees. “We’ll learn from it. At the same time, we’ll keep helping people focus on the work that matters most, build new skills and, where it makes sense, find new opportunities across Microsoft. There is no one-size-fits-all approach for every team or every employee.
These are a few of the ways we’re trying to meet different business needs while continuing to create opportunities for our own people to grow and contribute.”Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Emma RothTom WarrenAILaborMicrosoftNewsTechWindowsAfter buying more than 50 companies, Bending Spoons prepares for an IPO.Richard LawlerJun 8Meta lays off thousands of employees to offset AI investmentsJess WeatherbedMay 21With mass layoffs plannned, Meta reassigns thousands of employees to AI initiatives.Richard LawlerMay 18Most PopularA YouTuber dissected an iPhone Duo and thinks he found the cause of crackgateThe Gospel according to Peter (Thiel)r/opensource just banned AI, non-English speakers, and moreApple updates the iPad Mini with a larger OLED displayWhat to expect from Apple’s ‘Pro and tell’ eventAdvertiser Content FromThis is the title for the native ad
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