Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees

Microsoft has offered voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its global workforce, as it tries to rein in costs while spending heavily on artificial intelligence. The company announced the offer on Monday, October 26, 2026.

Who can take it

The offer covers staff in the United States, Canada, India and the United Kingdom, but only in the teams that choose to take part. In a memo to staff quoted by the Hindustan Times, chief people officer Amy Coleman said it would be open to eligible employees at level 70 and below; a Microsoft spokesperson, as reported by The Hindu, described those eligible as staff at vice-president level and below. Some groups, including some employees working on data centres, sales and marketing, are excluded, according to The Hindu.

Coleman described it in the memo as a time-limited, voluntary programme that lets employees who may be weighing a future outside the company leave with financial support and help with career planning.

Second offer this year

This is Microsoft's second such offer in 2026. In April the company opened a voluntary retirement programme to about 7% of its US workforce, and in July it announced cuts affecting 4,800 employees, the Hindustan Times reported. Microsoft had 223,000 employees worldwide at the end of June, down from 228,000 at the end of 2025, according to regulatory filings cited by The Guardian.

Results beat expectations

Two days after the offer, on Wednesday, October 28, Microsoft reported $92.3 billion in quarterly revenue and more than $36.6 billion in profit in a securities filing, The Guardian reported. Analysts had expected around $90.6 billion in revenue and $35.1 billion in profit, according to FactSet. The company's Azure cloud computing division grew by 48% in the September quarter.