Microsoft reportedly offers voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees as an attempt to trim costs

Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts to around 60,000 workers, according to a report by Bloomberg. The company employs approximately 223,000 people, so this would constitute over a quarter of the global workforce.

Select employees at the vice president level and below are eligible for the program. Reporting has indicated that the terms of the buyout are similar to a standard Microsoft severance package, according to TechCrunch.

Microsoft is offering buyouts to around 60,000 employees. Read the memo.

"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,"...

— Puget Point Capital (@PugetPointCap) October 26, 2026

Certain groups won't be eligible, which includes teams working on data centers. As a matter of fact, this whole thing looks to be part of the company's larger effort to cut costs and retool its workforce for the AI era.

Microsoft has set aside billions and billions of dollars for data centers and AI infrastructure, with nearly $175 billion being spent in 2026 alone. To that end, it has opened up nearly 90 hyperscale data centers this year.

The company certainly seems to have a lot of money for large-scale AI construction projects, but not too much for its human employees. It has been laying people off left and right. The Xbox division just got slammed with thousands of layoffs, and other departments have also suffered.

It is worth reiterating that this is a voluntary buyout program. That 60,000 number sounds huge, and it is, but we don't know how many people will accept the terms. Microsoft did something similar earlier this year and only 30 percent of eligible workers signed on the dotted line.