Microsoft offers buyouts to 8,750 staff
- Microsoft began its first voluntary employee buyout program on April 23, offering eligible U.S. staff a one-time retirement package instead of another round of involuntary layoffs. - The offer reaches about 7% of Microsoft’s U.S. workforce, or roughly 8,750 people, using a “Rule of 70” for senior director-level employees and below. - The move follows more than 15,000 layoffs in 2025 and comes amid Microsoft’s AI data-center spending surge. (cnbc.com)
Microsoft began offering voluntary retirement buyouts to some U.S. employees on April 23, its first such program in the company’s 51-year history. (cnbc.com) The one-time program applies to U.S. workers at the senior director level and below whose age plus years at Microsoft add up to at least 70. Employees on sales incentive plans are excluded. (cnbc.com) A person familiar with the plan told CNBC that about 7% of Microsoft’s U.S. workforce is eligible. Microsoft reported 125,000 U.S. employees as of June 2025, which puts the pool at roughly 8,750 people. (cnbc.com) (forbes.com) Eligible employees and their managers are set to receive details on May 7. Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s executive vice president and chief people officer, said the company hopes the program lets workers leave “on their own terms, with generous company support.” (cnbc.com) The buyouts arrive after Microsoft cut more than 15,000 jobs in 2025, including about 6,000 positions in May and about 9,000 more in July. Chief executive Satya Nadella said in a July 24, 2025 memo that the layoffs had been “weighing heavily” on him. (cnbc.com 1) (cnbc.com 2) Microsoft is making the offer while it keeps pouring money into artificial intelligence infrastructure. In January 2025, vice chair Brad Smith said the company expected to spend $80 billion in fiscal 2025 on data centers built for AI workloads. (cnbc.com) The same April 23 memo also changed how Microsoft pays annual rewards. Managers will no longer have to tie stock awards directly to cash bonuses, and the company reduced manager pay options from nine to five. (cnbc.com) Microsoft’s 2025 annual report said revenue rose 15% to $281.7 billion and Azure revenue topped $75 billion for the first time. The company also said it would keep investing in capital expenditures for cloud growth and AI infrastructure. (microsoft.com) The offer gives Microsoft a softer exit route for long-tenured U.S. staff as it keeps reshaping costs, management layers and compensation around its AI buildout. (cnbc.com)
