Microsoft offers buyouts to 60,000 employees

Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts to around 60,000 employees, which is approximately a quarter of the company's global workforce of 223,000 people.

The buyout offers are for employees at the vice president level and below in select teams in the United States, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom, while some employees, including those working in data centers, sales and marketing, are excluded.

The terms of the buyout will be similar to Microsoft's standard severance, and the company has cautioned that it does not expect many employees to sign on, as it continues to spend heavily on areas like AI, with nearly $175 billion allocated for data centers and AI infrastructure in 2026.