On Monday, October 26, Microsoft told employees that about 60,000 of them can choose to leave the company with a severance package. If you’ve seen this called a 60K layoff, that’s not what happened, and the difference matters.
Nobody is being let go by this offer. Each eligible person decides for themselves whether to take it.
What the offer includes
Chief People Officer Amy Coleman announced what Microsoft calls the Voluntary Exit Offer in a memo to staff. Here are the basics:
Who: employees on participating teams in the US, Canada, the UK and India, at level 70 and below on Microsoft’s internal scale. That reaches some general managers and some VP-titled employees, but not corporate vice presidents.
How many: about 60,000 people, or roughly 27% of the 223,000 employees Microsoft had at the end of June.
The package: the same as Microsoft’s standard severance. That means base pay based on tenure and level, continued stock vesting, healthcare for a fixed period and career transition help.
The deadline: employees have until the first week of December to decide. Anyone who accepts leaves on December 31, according to CNBC.
The rules: no age or tenure requirement, and performance isn’t a factor.
Unlike the retirement program from April, this one doesn’t include the extended healthcare coverage that made that deal attractive to so many people.
Which teams are in
The Verge reports that Copilot, CoreAI, Windows + Devices, Xbox, finance and HR are eligible. Parts of cloud + AI, MicrosoftAI and corporate, external and legal affairs are participating. Marketing, the commercial business, discovery and quantum, and security are sitting this one out. Microsoft says its sales organization is not participating either.
Copilot and CoreAI are among the teams tied most closely to Microsoft’s AI push, so eligibility doesn’t map neatly onto the idea that AI is replacing these jobs. Business leaders decide whether their groups take part. Coleman wrote that no single approach fits every team or every employee, and called the offer another way for participating organizations to adapt their workforce.
How Microsoft got here
This is the latest in a string of workforce moves in 2026, on top of a big round of cuts in 2025.
May and July 2025: about 15,000 layoffs.
April 2026: the first voluntary retirement program in the company’s history. About 8,750 US employees, roughly 7% of the US workforce, were eligible because their age plus years of service added up to 70 or more. About 30% took it.
July 2026: another 4,800 layoffs, about 2% of the global workforce. Coleman told GeekWire that the retirement program’s results made those cuts smaller.
October 26, 2026: the new exit offer.
GeekWire reports hundreds more cuts across the company in September. Headcount has already slipped, from 228,000 in June 2025 to 223,000 in June 2026.
“Voluntary” has limits
Microsoft says the offer isn’t a sign it needs fewer people, and that layoffs remain an option depending on business conditions. According to The Verge, an internal HR page also says the company may consider another voluntary offer where there is a business and workforce need. Coleman said in July that Microsoft was studying how to make voluntary exits a more regular part of managing its workforce, possibly on an annual or ongoing basis.
Some observers read that as a warning. After the April program, a career coach quoted by Reworked took Microsoft’s “on their own terms” language as a hint that later programs might be less generous, or not voluntary at all.
Companies like buyouts for practical reasons too. Employment lawyer Domenique Camacho Moran told Fortune in April that layoffs can be more complicated because they require evaluating each employee’s skills and performance to avoid litigation risk.
There is a cost. Sanchit Vir Gogia of Greyhound Research described the April program as a controlled tool for restructuring rather than a kindness, and pointed out that people who leave take context with them, not just skills. A common worry with any buyout is also that the people who go are the ones with the easiest path to another job, not the ones the company would have picked.
The numbers
Sixty thousand is how many people can say yes, not how many will. Using the 223,000 headcount from June (before the July layoffs, so the percentages are rough), here is what a few acceptance rates would look like:
10% accept: 6,000 people, about 2.7% of the workforce.
30% accept, the rate from the April program: 18,000 people, about 8%.
Microsoft told GeekWire it expects a much smaller share than 30%. The April offer went to longtime employees who were more likely to take it, while this one is open to a much broader group.
The AI spending behind it
Microsoft is putting tens of billions of dollars into data centers and AI infrastructure, and GeekWire notes it is under pressure from Wall Street to hold down operating expenses. CNBC described the new offer as an effort to balance that buildout with capital efficiency.
Microsoft hasn’t tied the April program to specific AI projects.
What to watch
Acceptance. Whether Microsoft shares how many people said yes is an open question. Earnings are due Wednesday, October 28, and could include an estimate of what the offer will cost; the April retirement program carried a $900 million charge.
Layoffs. Whether more layoffs follow after the exits take effect.
Backfilling. For the April program, Microsoft didn’t say whether vacated roles would be refilled. The same question applies now.
Another offer. Whether voluntary exits become a regular, possibly yearly, program.
For the 60,000 people holding the offer, the decision comes down to savings, job prospects and how secure their own team feels. For everyone watching from outside, the more telling number will arrive after the deadline.
Sources
CNBC: Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees as AI leads to efficiency push
Calcalist: Microsoft offers buyouts to 60,000 workers but says layoffs remain an option
Reworked: Microsoft’s voluntary buyout is a layoff with better manners
Computerworld: Microsoft to offer voluntary retirement buyouts to about 7% of the US workforce
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