Microsoft is giving a large slice of its workforce a new choice: stay, or leave now with a severance-style package. On Monday, October 26, the company announced a Voluntary Exit Offer open to about 60,000 employees in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and India.

That is roughly a quarter of the company’s workforce, which stood at 223,000 full-time employees as of June 30. Here is what we know, based on reporting from GeekWire, CNBC and Microsoft’s official blog.

Who is eligible

The offer is narrower than the headline number might suggest. According to GeekWire:

  • It applies to employees in participating teams only. Business leaders decide whether their groups take part.
  • Microsoft’s sales organization is not participating, nor are some engineering groups and corporate functions.
  • It goes up to level 70 on Microsoft’s internal scale, which includes general managers and some employees with vice president titles, but not corporate vice presidents.
  • There is no age or tenure requirement, and performance is not a factor.

“This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support,” Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s chief people officer, wrote in a memo to staff.

What’s in the package

Microsoft says the offer is equivalent to its standard severance. GeekWire reported that it includes base pay based on tenure and level, continued stock vesting, healthcare coverage for a fixed period and career transition services. It does not include the extended healthcare that was a major draw of the company’s spring retirement program.

Eligible employees will get details by email and have until the first week of December to decide. According to reports on the offer, employees who accept would leave the company on December 31.

How this differs from the spring offer

This is Microsoft’s second buyout-style program this year. In the spring it offered its first-ever voluntary retirement program, limited to U.S. employees at the senior director level and below whose age plus years of service met a minimum threshold. About 30% of the roughly 8,750 eligible employees took that deal, according to GeekWire, and Microsoft disclosed a $900 million charge for it.

Microsoft told GeekWire it expects a much smaller share of people to accept the new, broader offer.

Why now: the AI spending squeeze

Like its Big Tech peers, Microsoft is pouring tens of billions of dollars into data centers and AI infrastructure while facing pressure from Wall Street to keep operating costs in check. The company has already cut thousands of jobs, including 4,800 in July and more than 15,000 in 2025, GeekWire reported.

Microsoft says the buyouts do not mean it needs fewer employees overall and are not a replacement for layoffs, which remain an option depending on business conditions. Coleman has said the company is studying whether to make voluntary exits a regular part of how it manages its workforce.

Buyouts remain relatively rare at the largest tech companies, which have generally relied on layoffs, stricter performance reviews and return-to-office mandates to shrink.

What to watch

Microsoft reports quarterly earnings on Wednesday afternoon. Analysts will be looking for any estimate of what the new offer will cost, as well as fresh numbers on AI-related capital spending.

What it means for tech workers

For employees, a voluntary offer is generally gentler than an involuntary layoff because it lets people choose their own timing. But it is also a signal that the company wants to reshape its workforce as AI changes how work gets done. Anyone weighing an offer like this should read the terms carefully and consider talking to a financial or legal professional before deciding.

The bottom line

Microsoft’s Voluntary Exit Offer is one of the broadest buyout programs in Big Tech, covering about 60,000 people across four countries. How many actually take it, and what Microsoft says on Wednesday, will show how far the company’s AI-era restructuring has to go.

Image: Microsoft building 17 front door by Derrick Coetzee via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain Mark 1.0