Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its 223,000-person global workforce, as it pours more money into artificial intelligence, according to Agence France-Presse reporting carried by CBS News.
The exit offers went out by email on Monday to eligible staff at the vice-president level or below in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and India.
"This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support," said Amy Coleman, Microsoft's chief people officer, in a memo to staff.
Workers in data centres, sales and marketing are excluded, a company spokesperson told Bloomberg.
The programme is a voluntary-exit scheme offering packages comparable to standard severance, not an immediate dismissal of 60,000 people; how many actually leave depends on take-up.
Reported participating teams include AI Experiences, Copilot, CoreAI, Windows and Devices, Xbox, finance and human resources.
It is Microsoft's second such offer this year: in April the company gave roughly 7% of its U.S. workforce the option to retire early, and in July it offered buyouts to about 8,750 retirement-age employees, of whom more than 30% accepted.
The latest round also follows roughly 4,800 layoffs earlier in 2026, concentrated in Xbox and commercial sales.
Microsoft's headcount has already slipped from 228,000 at the end of 2025 to 223,000 at the end of June, even as the company builds out AI infrastructure including a $5.5 billion Singapore cloud programme running through 2029 and a $4.5 billion Denmark datacenter expansion.
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