Microsoft is making a new buyout offer to a much broader group of employees, this time including some executives — signaling that it’s not done shrinking its workforce despite thousands of layoffs and retirements this year.
The Voluntary Exit Offer, announced Monday in a memo to employees, is open to about 60,000 people in participating teams in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and India, the company told GeekWire. That’s about a quarter of its workforce, which numbered 223,000 people at last count.
Microsoft didn’t provide a projection for how many employees will accept, but the company told GeekWire it anticipates a much smaller share than the roughly 30% who took its earlier voluntary retirement offer, which went to longtime employees more likely to take the deal.
“This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support,” wrote Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s chief people officer, in the memo to employees.
It also gives participating organizations within the company “another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs,” she added.
Microsoft’s count of 223,000 full-time employees as of June 30 was down from 228,000 a year earlier, according to its annual filings. That latest number came before its July layoffs.
However, Microsoft says the offer isn’t a sign that it needs fewer employees. Instead, a company spokesperson described it as one of several ways it’s adjusting to changing business needs.
The Voluntary Exit Offer includes financial support and career planning resources, according to the memo. It says eligible employees will receive the details by email.
The package is equivalent to Microsoft’s standard severance, according to the company, including base pay based on tenure and level, continued stock vesting, healthcare coverage for a fixed period and career transition services. It doesn’t include the extended healthcare that was a major draw of the retirement program. Employees have until the first week of December to decide.
The new offer does not come with any age or tenure requirement, and performance isn’t a factor, the company said. 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.
That’s a big change from the voluntary retirement program that Microsoft offered this spring, which was the first in its history. That program was limited to U.S. employees at the senior director level (level 67) and below whose age plus years at the company reached a minimum threshold. The company described that as a one-time initiative.
Buyouts are still relatively rare among the largest tech companies, which have generally relied on layoffs, stricter performance reviews and return-to-office mandates to thin their ranks.
Like its peers, Microsoft is under pressure from Wall Street to hold down operating expenses as it pours tens of billions of dollars into data centers and AI infrastructure.
Microsoft cut 4,800 jobs in July, about 2% of its global workforce, including about 600 in Washington state, followed by hundreds more across the company in September. The company cut more than 15,000 jobs in 2025.
The company said the new offer is not a replacement for layoffs, which will remain part of the company’s approach depending on business conditions.
When Microsoft offered the retirement program this spring, about 30% of the roughly 8,750 eligible U.S. employees took the deal. Coleman told GeekWire in July that the results reduced the size of the layoffs Microsoft announced that month.
At the time, Coleman said Microsoft was studying how to make voluntary exits a more regular part of how it manages its workforce, possibly on an annual or ongoing basis.
Among the other changes this time, Microsoft is leaving it to business leaders to decide whether their groups participate, the company said. The company’s sales organization is not participating, nor are some engineering groups and corporate functions.
“There is no one-size-fits-all approach for every team or every employee,” Coleman wrote in the memo, explaining that participation by different groups “varies based on each business’s priorities, customer commitments, and workforce needs.”
She said Microsoft will keep helping employees build new skills and, where it makes sense, move into other jobs inside the company. Microsoft said in July that it had redeployed more than 4,000 employees into new roles over the previous year.
Microsoft reports quarterly earnings Wednesday afternoon, which could include projections for the cost of the new buyout offer. The company disclosed a $900 million charge for the retirement program in its April earnings report.
