Microsoft Offers Voluntary Exit to 60,000 Employees

Microsoft has offered a voluntary exit package to 60,000 employees in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and India, the company told staff and sources. The offer covers roughly 27 percent of Microsoft’s approximately 223,000 global workforce, according to the report.

Analysts say the move appears aimed at reducing headcount without announcing another round of direct layoffs. Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s chief human resources officer, wrote in a message to employees that the new offer gives staff an opportunity to end their employment with financial support and access to career-planning resources. Details on the size of the financial support or the deadline for decisions were not disclosed in the report.

Eligibility and coverage

Sources familiar with the plan said participation will be open to employees across multiple teams. Teams listed as fully eligible include AI, Copilot and CoreAI, Windows + Devices, Xbox, finance and human resources. Participation will be more limited in some areas: only portions of Cloud + AI, MicrosoftAI and corporate, external and legal functions were offered the exit option.

Certain units are not included in the program. Marketing, commercial business, exploration and quantum, and security teams were reported as excluded from the offer. Despite the program’s breadth, the report noted that commercial sales teams are not being targeted by this initiative, an important distinction because those teams were affected in the previous round of reductions.

Context and precedent

The voluntary offer comes a few months after Microsoft cut about 4,800 jobs, with that earlier round mostly affecting Xbox and commercial sales teams. According to Fortune, Asha Sharma, Xbox CEO, is reportedly planning further rounds of reductions.

Microsoft previously ran a narrower voluntary retirement program in 2026 for long-tenured employees. That earlier offer was available to about 9,000 U.S.-based employees at specified organizational levels, and required the sum of an employee’s age and years of service to equal 70 or more.