Microsoft extends buyouts to 60,000 staff in India, US, UK and Canada

Microsoft is offering buyouts to around 60,000 employees across India, the US, the UK and Canada, its second voluntary exit programme this year and a much wider one than the first. Announced on Monday in a memo from Chief People Officer Amy Coleman, the Voluntary Exit Offer (VEO) covers more than a quarter of the company's roughly 223,000 employees. It reaches up to level 70 on Microsoft's internal scale, which takes in general managers and some staff with vice president titles, though not corporate vice presidents.Unlike the retirement buyout Microsoft ran earlier this year, this one has no age or tenure cut-off, and performance plays no part in who qualifies. Eligible employees will get an email with their individual terms within hours. They have until the first week of December to decide, and those who accept will leave at the end of the year."This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support," Coleman wrote. It also gives participating organisations "another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs," she added.Microsoft's voluntary exit offer pays out like its standard severanceThe package matches Microsoft's standard severance. That means base pay linked to tenure and level, continued stock vesting, healthcare for a fixed period and career transition support. What it leaves out is the extended healthcare that made the retirement programme an easy yes for many long-serving staff.Severance in Microsoft's US layoffs earlier this year started at 60 days of base pay and went up to 39 weeks for most employees. Staff at level 64 and below got a week of base pay for every six months of service, while levels 65 to 67 got two weeks.Not every team is in. Business leaders decide whether their groups participate, and sales is sitting this one out. Marketing, commercial business, security, and discovery and quantum teams are excluded too, according to people familiar with the matter. Copilot, CoreAI, Windows + Devices, Xbox, finance and HR are among those taking part, while Cloud + AI and Microsoft AI are partially in.Buyouts now sit alongside layoffs in Microsoft's AI-era job cutsThe VEO builds on the Voluntary Retirement Program from this spring, the first in Microsoft's history. That offer went to roughly 8,750 US employees at senior director level and below whose age and years at the company added up to at least 70. About 30% took it, and Microsoft booked a $900 million charge for it in April.The turnout helped shrink the layoffs that followed, Coleman said later. Microsoft still cut 4,800 jobs in July, about 2% of its workforce, and several hundred more in September, after cutting over 15,000 in 2025. Headcount stood at 223,000 on June 30, down from 228,000 a year earlier.The company is under pressure to hold down operating costs while it spends tens of billions on data centres and AI infrastructure. Still, Microsoft says the buyout is not a sign it needs fewer people, nor a replacement for layoffs, which remain on the table. It expects a much smaller share of employees to accept this time.Quarterly earnings on Wednesday could offer a first look at what the offer will cost. Coleman called the programme "new for us" in her memo, and said in July that Microsoft was studying whether voluntary exits could become a regular, even annual, fixture. How many of these 60,000 employees take the deal will likely settle that.