60,000 Microsoft Workers Get a Voluntary Exit Offer Before a December Deadline

About 60,000 Microsoft employees are eligible for a new buyout, which is about 27% of its workforce, and a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that eligibility figure in the Los Angeles Times story. The offer is voluntary. It is open to eligible employees in participating teams in Canada, India, the United Kingdom and the United States. Being eligible is not the same as leaving. For Metaintro readers who work at Microsoft or compete with its staff for jobs, this guide covers who can take the offer, what it pays in the US and India, the decision dates, the uptake benchmarks, and the unemployment and redundancy rules that shape the choice.

What Did Microsoft Announce on October 26?

Chief people officer Amy Coleman shared the memo with staff, and Microsoft posted it on the Official Microsoft Blog under the title Introducing a Voluntary Exit Offer. The program, called the VEO, gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support.

It is a time-limited, voluntary program that gives those who are eligible the opportunity to leave Microsoft with financial support and career planning resources. It also gives participating organizations another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs.

Personal terms were not in the memo. Under the memo, eligible employees would receive an email with a link to their Voluntary Exit Offer details within the next few hours.

Who Is Eligible for the Voluntary Exit Offer?

Level is the first filter. The offer covers staff at level 70 and below, and eligible employees include senior leaders, up to vice presidents. That reaches higher than the spring program, which was open to those at the senior director level of 67 and below.

Team is the second filter. Some organizations are providing the Voluntary Exit Offer, and some are not, and participation varies based on each business's priorities, customer commitments and workforce needs. Some marketing, sales and engineering teams have decided not to participate, according to a person familiar with the matter, and some employees who work on data centers, sales and marketing aren't eligible, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing Bloomberg.

Owned businesses are a third filter. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that subsidiaries including Github and gaming studios such as Xbox and Activision Blizzard aren't part of the voluntary buyout program.

Country is the last filter. Only staff in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and India can take it. In India, the company did not share details of the number of employees impacted.

What Does the Microsoft Buyout Pay?

Pay is tied to tenure. Employees who take the buyout will get severance payments based on tenure at the company, and the terms will vary according to labor laws in different countries but will be consistent with standard separation packages.

US staff have a floor. In the US the package means a minimum of eight weeks' pay, with continued stock vesting, health care, and career services. Microsoft's July layoffs used a separate severance scale by job level.

India has its own formula. Eligible staff in India who take the offer get one month of base salary for each completed year of service, health insurance and career transition services as a standard severance package.

When Do Employees Have to Decide, and When Do They Leave?

The decision window closes in early December. US, UK, Canadian and Indian staff must accept by the first week of December, with those participating leaving on Dec. 31. That makes the last day of the year the exit date, not the deadline to answer.

Exact deadlines differ by market. The deadline for workers to respond varies by market, and in India selected employees must decide by December 1.

Microsoft had its quarterly earnings scheduled for Wednesday.

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, chief people officer Amy Coleman wrote, according to the Official Microsoft Blog memo.

How Many Microsoft Employees Are Likely to Take the Offer?

Microsoft does not have a target in mind this time around, according to a person briefed on the plan, and when asked about expected uptake, a spokesperson pointed to other major tech companies that have had similar programs and saw a 3% to 5% uptake.

Microsoft's own spring program gives a second benchmark. The first-ever voluntary retirement program was one that around 7% of U.S. employees were eligible for, and more than 30% of eligible employees chose to participate.

That spring offer went to long-tenured employees in April, the first time Microsoft had made such an arrangement, and Coleman noted then that Microsoft was aiming to move faster and simplify its operations.

There is no word from Microsoft on layoffs if enough employees don't accept buyouts.

Why Is Microsoft Offering Buyouts Now?

The backdrop is heavy spending on AI capacity. In July, Microsoft guided that capital expenditures for the September quarter should exceed $50 billion, against $34.9 billion in capital spending and finance leases in the same quarter a year earlier. For the quarter ending in June, capital expenditures came to $41 billion, and Microsoft projected $145.3 billion in total spending for its 2026 fiscal year.

The business model is shifting at the same time. Microsoft is increasingly trying to charge clients based on how much AI they actually use, and it wants to ensure that it has the right talent to go after its most compelling new growth opportunities.

In the second quarter, Microsoft showed $19.64 billion in positive free cash flow for the period, down 23% year over year, while cloud rivals Alphabet and Amazon both posted negative free cash flow.

Results released in July showed that revenue in the fiscal fourth quarter reached $90 billion and net income was $35.8 billion, beating analysts' expectations.

Headcount was already shrinking. Microsoft employed about 223,000 people at the end of June, down 5,000 workers from the same period in 2025. In July the company eliminated around 4,800 roles, about 2.1% of its global workforce and mostly in its Commercial and Xbox organizations, after more than 15,000 layoffs in 2025.

Rivals are cutting too. Google offered buyouts to select employees in June, and Amazon has cut jobs in units such as Stores after laying off about 30,000 workers between late 2025 and early this year.

On AI, Microsoft drew a line in July. Coleman wrote that the roles eliminated in July were not being replaced by AI, while adding that some everyday tasks can now be automated. The company also planned to continue exploring similar approaches in the future after the retirement program, and the new offer builds on lessons from the Voluntary Retirement Program.

Is Microsoft Still Hiring While It Offers Buyouts?

Yes. The company welcomed 1,600 new employees between October 19 and 23, Coleman posted on social media on Saturday.

In the same post, Coleman contrasted Microsoft with companies that see AI as a reason to hire fewer people early in their careers.

Internal moves are part of the plan too. Over the year to July, Microsoft redeployed more than 4,000 employees into new roles, and the company plans to keep helping people find new opportunities across Microsoft where it makes sense.

Separately, for India, a spokesperson pointed to $20.5 billion in committed investment between 2025 and 2029 across cloud and AI infrastructure, skilling and operations and to a commitment, which the spokesperson described as on track, of equipping 20 million people across India with AI skills by 2030.

Every leader we'll need in ten years is starting their career somewhere today. We want them starting here, Amy Coleman said in a post, according to the Business Standard report on Microsoft India.

Can Washington Workers Who Take a Buyout Still Claim Unemployment?

Microsoft is based in Redmond, Wash., so Washington's jobless rules apply to staff there. Normally a worker qualifies for benefits if they worked at least 680 hours in covered employment in his or her base year, were separated from employment through no fault of his or her own or quit work for good cause, and the worker is able to work and is actively searching for work.

A new state law changed the rule for volunteers. Under the old Employment Security Department rules, volunteering for an employer-initiated layoff or reduction in force plan kept benefits only if the employer first put the plan to staff, the worker offered to be included, and the employer takes the final action in the separation process by accepting the offer. House Bill 2264 removed that test, so for claims on or after June 14, 2026, the separating employer need only terminate the worker's employment as a result of the employer's layoff or reduction in force plan. An employer may allow a worker to rescind an offer, and allowing this option does not disqualify the worker from benefits. Whether Microsoft treats the Voluntary Exit Offer as a layoff or reduction in force plan, the test this rule uses, is not yet public.

The amounts are capped. Eligible workers may receive up to 26 weeks of benefits in a benefit year, and the maximum weekly benefit is $1,208.

The weekly amount follows a set formula. The base year is the first 4 of the last 5 completed calendar quarters before the week a worker applies. Workers short of the hours test in that period may be eligible for an alternate base year (ABY) claim, which uses the last 4 completed calendar quarters before the week you filed your claim. The department combines gross wages from the 2 quarters in your base year when you earned the most, divides by 2 and multiplies this number by 0.0385. A result above the cap pays the cap, and a result between $383 and the cap is paid as is, rounded down to the nearest dollar. Below $383, the department multiplies the step one figure by 4, divides by 52 to get an estimated weekly wage, and pays the lesser of that wage or $383, rounded down. The total on a claim is the smaller of 26 times the weekly benefit amount or 1/3 of the total gross (before tax) wages in all 4 quarters of your base year.

How Does the Offer Compare With UK Redundancy Pay?

UK staff can test any package against the statutory floor that applies to redundancy. Statutory redundancy pay normally applies to employees who have worked for their employer for 2 years or more. It pays half a week's pay for each full year you were under 22, one week's pay for each full year you were 22 or older, but under 41 and one and half week's pay for each full year you were 41 or older.

The caps depend on the date. For redundancies on or after 6 April 2026, weekly pay is capped at £751 (about $1,000) and the maximum statutory redundancy pay you can get is £22,530 (about $30,100). Length of service is capped at 20 years.

Microsoft calls this a voluntary program, so the statutory figure is a yardstick here, not a promise.

What This Means for Microsoft Employees, and What Should You Do Next?

This is a choice with a deadline, not a layoff notice. For job seekers outside Microsoft, the date to note is the exit day, since staff who accept leave on Dec. 31.

• Check your safety net. Washington staff can read the new rule for workers who volunteer in a layoff or reduction in force plan before they sign.

Lacey Kaelani, Metaintro's CEO, puts it this way: A buyout is only a good deal if you already know where you are going next. Line up the next role, then sign.

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• Should You Accept a Voluntary Separation Package and How to Decide

People Also Asked

Q: How many Microsoft employees are eligible for the Voluntary Exit Offer?

A: About 60,000 people are eligible, roughly 27% of Microsoft's 223,000 workforce, across participating teams in the US, Canada, India and the UK.

Q: When is the deadline for the Microsoft buyout?

A: Staff must accept by the first week of December, with India set at December 1.

Q: Is the Microsoft Voluntary Exit Offer a layoff?

A: No. It is a time-limited, voluntary program.

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