Microsoft offers buyouts to around 60,000 employees

Microsoft is offering buyouts to around 60,000 employees, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Monday. The move marks Microsoft’s latest efforts to cut costs and rework its workforce for the AI age.

Microsoft’s Chief People Officer, Amy Coleman, sent employees a note about the buyouts, which was also published on the company’s website.

Employees at the vice president level and below on select teams in the United States, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom will be eligible, according to the note. Bloomberg reports that divisions including Xbox, Windows, Copilot and Finance are participating in the buyout offer. Some employees, including those working in data centers, sales and marketing, are excluded.

The news was first reported by Business Insider.

“The Voluntary Exit Offer reflects an important part of how we’re evolving our approach to change: creating greater flexibility and, where possible, more ways for employees to shape their next chapter,” the note to employees reads. “This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support.”

The company said eligible employees would be receiving an email with a link to their Voluntary Exit Offer details on Monday. The terms of the buyout will be similar to Microsoft’s standard severance.

“The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us,” the note reads. “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.”

The buyout offer gives Microsoft a way to reduce its workforce without resorting to the more disruptive approach of mass layoffs. It’s also not the first time that the company has offered buyouts. Earlier this year, Microsoft offered buyouts to retirement-age employees, with more than 30% of the roughly 8,750 eligible workers accepting.

Microsoft’s headcount as of the end of June was 223,000.

Update 10/26/2026 11:21 AM PT: The article was updated to include additional details from Microsoft.

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Aisha is a consumer news reporter at TechCrunch. Prior to joining the publication in 2021, she was a telecom reporter at MobileSyrup. Aisha holds an honours bachelor’s degree from University of Toronto and a master’s degree in journalism from Western University.

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