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Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees


Key Points
Around 60,000 Microsoft employees are eligible for the new buyout program across four countries, said a person familiar with the matter.

The move comes six months after Microsoft announced its first-ever voluntary retirement program to a small set of U.S. workers.

Employees must decide whether to take the offer in December, and those participating will leave on Dec. 31.

Microsoft said Monday that it’s offering buyouts to a wide swath of employees as it strives to balance a costly AI infrastructure buildout with capital efficiency.

The software maker announced a new voluntary exit offer for certain workers in the U.S., Canada, India and the United Kingdom at its experience level of 70 or below.

Around 60,000 people are eligible, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named while discussing an internal matter. The effort affects about 27% of Microsoft’s total workforce of 223,000 people.

Microsoft has been ramping up spending on data centers to accommodate high AI computing demand, supplying cloud services to Anthropic, OpenAI and a slew of other companies. That put a strain on Microsoft’s finances. In April, it announced a first-ever voluntary retirement program that around 7% of U.S. employees were eligible for. Then, in July, Microsoft announced plans to lay off 4,800 employees.

“The Voluntary Exit Offer reflects an important part of how we’re evolving our approach to change: creating greater flexibility and, where possible, more ways for employees to shape their next chapter,” Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s executive vice president and chief people officer, wrote in a memo to employees. “This builds on what we learned earlier this year through the Voluntary Retirement Program.”

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

Some marketing, sales and engineering teams have decided not to participate in the new buyout, the person said. Employees must decide whether to take the offer in December, and those participating will leave on Dec. 31, the person added.

Over 30% of those who could join the voluntary retirement program went ahead with it, Microsoft said in July. But that was open to those at the senior director level and below, while the new initiative goes higher, to the vice president level, said the person briefed on the new plan. The person said Microsoft does not have a target in mind this time around.

On Wednesday Microsoft reports third-quarter results.

FreeStuffsNG:
Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees
Over 30% of those who could join the voluntary retirement program went ahead with it, Microsoft said in July. But that was open to those at the senior director level and below, while the new initiative goes higher, to the vice president level, said the person briefed on the new plan.


Mass sacking of the core microsoft people behind the Gaza genocide. Smh

FreeStuffsNG:
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/26/microsoft-msft-voluntary-buyouts.html

FineUsername:
AI will definitely put lotta folks outta job.

The initiative is part of Microsoft's strategy to balance significant investments in AI infrastructure with overall capital efficiency.

Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s executive vice president and chief people officer, stated that the program aims to provide employees with greater flexibility in their career transitions.

tunapawizzy:
Go and learn AI people.
No follow the people wey go dey talk "had I known" when e set

tunapawizzy:
Go and learn AI people.
No follow the people wey go dey talk "had I known" when e set

Iamblessed8888:
Unfortunately, your comment would have been apt in the early days of AI but we’ve gone past that now.

With agentic AI and the race to super intelligence ,the reverse is the case because it’s AI that’s learning us now.

How can you learn something smarter than you?

The only advantage humans have over AI now is that we have hands and legs. With robotic AI coming onstream, forget it, we are gone.

Think for a second, if you had a business, would you rather hire a human who will complain, ask for wage increase, go on leave, close early, gossip etc or would you hire chatgpt with legs who will work 24 hours and never fall sick or ask for more pay.

tunapawizzy:
I get your point but I am coming from the angle of necessary human input. Even agentic AI operates within objectives and frameworks established by humans. Human is still needed to define the objectives of AI, establish boundaries etc. Design, deployment and improvement of models will forever need human input. The future will be about humans managing AI. The opportunity is still vast

tunapawizzy:
I get your point but I am coming from the angle of necessary human input. Even agentic AI operates within objectives and frameworks established by humans. Human is still needed to define the objectives of AI, establish boundaries etc. Design, deployment and improvement of models will forever need human input. The future will be about humans managing AI. The opportunity is still vast

Nteogwuija:
Lol, I thought this one had small sense.

You didn't even think that some of these employees could be from Gaza or have a Palestinian heritage.

Your groundless hatred has taken over your sense of reasoning.

Bandits are slaughtering people, including ur Muslim brothers, you've never once condemned them but na the one wey dey far away Gaza na ehn ur okpolo eye dey chook reach.

If them give u Gaza visa now, keep US or EU own you no go even think twice collect the West own.

Phew!

Iamblessed8888:
Unfortunately, your comment would have been apt in the early days of AI but we’ve gone past that now.

With agentic AI and the race to super intelligence ,the reverse is the case because it’s AI that’s learning us now.

How can you learn something smarter than you? Even OpenAI lost control of its agents recently while testing them. They had to rely on another AI to tame them .

The only advantage humans have over AI now is that we have hands and legs. With robotic AI coming onstream, forget it, we are gone.

Think for a second, if you had a business, would you rather hire a human who will complain, ask for wage increase, go on leave, close early, gossip etc or would you hire chatgpt with legs who will work 24 hours and never fall sick or ask for more pay?

Iamblessed8888:
Unfortunately, your comment would have been apt in the early days of AI but we’ve gone past that now.

With agentic AI and the race to super intelligence ,the reverse is the case because it’s AI that’s learning us now.

How can you learn something smarter than you? Even OpenAI lost control of its agents recently while testing them. They had to rely on another AI to tame them .

The only advantage humans have over AI now is that we have hands and legs. With robotic AI coming onstream, forget it, we are gone.

Think for a second, if you had a business, would you rather hire a human who will complain, ask for wage increase, go on leave, close early, gossip etc or would you hire chatgpt with legs who will work 24 hours and never fall sick or ask for more pay?

SeriouslySense:
more character needed. They are building something that will enslave us. Take away our motivation to work or to be creative.

For now, AI is helpful but it is becoming too useful that we are becoming not useful.

AI with a body is not good, it will just take almost all jobs.

Just as you said, AI, does not complain, it thinks so fast, can put things together so fast, then with a body, it will do the cooking, farming, driving, healthcare, fighting wars,

I want it self to be doing house work.

Ankakh:
No job is guaranteed. The days of job stability are gradually coming to an end. The key thing is what value can you offer and how you can massively sell your skill set.

purplekayc:
A I. PEOPLE



Ldbdpebelevek

FreeStuffsNG:
Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees
Over 30% of those who could join the voluntary retirement program went ahead with it, Microsoft said in July. But that was open to those at the senior director level and below, while the new initiative goes higher, to the vice president level, said the person briefed on the new plan.


Mass sacking of the core microsoft people behind the Gaza genocide. Smh

Iamblessed8888:
Bro, if that were to be the case, i wouldn’t be sounding an alarm. Do a quick research on what’s called Recursive AI improvement.

Your comment is based on the early days of AI, not the AI of today.

When i say AI, i dont mean chatgpt, i mean the one on the mainframe computers of OpenAI and Anthropic and co which will be eventually rolled out for public use soon.

When i said OpenAI lost control of its own agents, shouldn’t that scare you enough? These agents have been shown to gang up with fellow agents and carry out self preservation tactics including actions not intended by the programmer. They also lie and attempt to cover their traces. Also do a research on hugging face incident

FreeStuffsNG:
Mass sacking of the core microsoft people behind the Gaza genocide. Smh

Nothing beats Gazan chairs 💪 pic.twitter.com/NioPQipUfV

— GAZAWOOD - The Pallywood Saga - Official (@GAZAWOOD2) October 26, 2026

SeriouslySense:
more character needed. They are building something that will enslave us. Take away our motivation to work or to be creative.

For now, AI is helpful but it is becoming too useful that we are becoming not useful.

AI with a body is not good, it will just take almost all jobs.

Just as you said, AI, does not complain, it thinks so fast, can put things together so fast, then with a body, it will do the cooking, farming, driving, healthcare, fighting wars,

I want it self to be doing house work.