Microsoft has opened a voluntary exit offer to about 60,000 employees across four countries, according to Bloomberg reporting — roughly a quarter of its global workforce. The offer, announced on October 26, 2026, is not a layoff: nobody is being told to leave, and Microsoft has announced no target for how many people it expects to accept. It is, however, the largest workforce action the company has taken this year, and it arrives as Microsoft pours money into AI infrastructure at a pace its payroll is not matching.
The program, which Microsoft calls a Voluntary Exit Offer, was introduced in a post on the Official Microsoft Blog by Amy Coleman, executive vice president and chief people officer. It is time-limited and voluntary, offering eligible employees in participating teams in Canada, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States financial support and career planning resources if they choose to leave. Eligible employees are at internal level 70 and below — vice president level and below, according to Bloomberg — and were told they would receive an email with their offer details within hours of the announcement.
“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 organizations another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs.” She added that the program builds on what the company learned earlier this year through its Voluntary Retirement Program, and that “the Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us. We’ll learn from it.”
The 60,000 figure needs a careful attribution. Microsoft’s own blog post gives no number. The figure comes from Bloomberg’s reporting, which TechCrunch reports Microsoft confirmed to TechCrunch; Reuters, citing a source familiar with the program, also reported about 60,000 eligible employees. Against Microsoft’s roughly 223,000 full-time employees at the end of June 2026, that is about 27% of the workforce — the number of people offered the exit, not the number expected to take it.
Not every part of Microsoft is taking part. Coleman wrote that “some organizations are providing the Voluntary Exit Offer, and some are not,” varying “based on each business’s priorities, customer commitments and workforce needs.” People familiar with the plan told Reuters and other outlets that participating teams include AI experiences, Copilot, Windows + Devices, Xbox, finance, and human resources, while marketing, commercial business, security, and some data-center groups are excluded. Microsoft itself has not published a team list, so those boundaries come from reporting, not from the company.
The terms are similarly general in public. TechCrunch reports the packages resemble Microsoft’s standard severance, and reports describe financial support plus career planning resources, with some departing employees also offered extended health care and stock arrangements. Microsoft has not published the terms, and the memo itself gives no payment figures. Reports say employees have until early December to decide, with departures planned for the end of the year.
The context is a year of steady workforce reductions paired with accelerating AI spending. Earlier in 2026, Microsoft ran a smaller, U.S.-only voluntary retirement program, then cut about 4,800 jobs in July, mostly in its commercial and Xbox divisions. Reports put Microsoft’s 2026 spending on AI data centers and chips at about $175 billion. The contrast is the story: the company is spending heavily to build AI capacity while asking a large share of its staff whether they would like a supported way out. Microsoft has already shown it will walk away from infrastructure bets that do not add up, pulling out of a UK data-center deal when power timelines stretched into the 2030s. The broader industry is asking the same cost questions: AWS says its cloud capacity is largely sold out through 2027, a sign of how much demand — and spending — the AI buildout is driving. And skepticism about the returns on that spending is growing, as Apollo’s chief economist argues AI has delivered little financial payoff outside Big Tech.
The offer also lands ahead of Microsoft’s quarterly earnings report this week, putting workforce costs squarely in focus for investors. What happens next depends on a number Microsoft cannot control: how many of the roughly 60,000 eligible employees decide that a supported exit beats staying. An earlier voluntary program this year saw about 30% of eligible staff opt in, according to reports — a rate that, if repeated, would still mean tens of thousands of departures. But this program is larger, broader, and open to staff in four countries, and Microsoft has said it expects no specific outcome. The company calls it a choice; the scale of the offer makes it one of the most consequential workforce decisions in its recent history either way.
