Microsoft offers buyouts to 60,000 employees, nearly a quarter of its workforce

Microsoft confirmed on October 26, 2026 that it is offering voluntary buyouts to approximately 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its global workforce, as first reported by TechCrunch and Bloomberg. The offer covers staff at level 70 and below — vice president rank and under — on participating teams in the United States, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom.

The move extends a cost-cutting push that began in April 2026, when Microsoft ran its first-ever voluntary retirement program for long-tenured staff. That earlier round offered more generous terms to drive higher uptake. This new program is explicitly structured with less generous terms, and Microsoft itself expects lower participation this time — a signal the company is managing attrition carefully rather than aiming for a mass exodus.

According to Bloomberg and Deadline, eligible divisions include Xbox, Windows, Copilot, and Finance, while Reuters reports that marketing, commercial sales, and security teams are excluded from the offer. Employees who qualify have until early December 2026 to decide, with an exit date of December 31 for those who accept. Payout terms mirror standard severance packages rather than the enhanced terms used in April.

The buyout program lands as Microsoft continues pouring capital into AI data centers, custom silicon, and compute capacity to support Copilot and its OpenAI partnership, while facing pressure to show investors that this spending translates into leaner, more efficient operations elsewhere in the business. Workforce costs are one of the few levers Microsoft can pull quickly compared with multi-year infrastructure commitments.

For employees, a second voluntary program within seven months raises the question of whether a third, less voluntary round could follow if uptake falls short of Microsoft's internal targets. For the broader tech sector, it adds to a pattern seen across the industry this year of large incumbents restructuring their labor costs in parallel with record AI capital expenditure — even as those same companies report strong earnings. Microsoft has not disclosed a target headcount reduction or total cost savings expected from the program.

Source: as reported by TechCrunch and Bloomberg.