Microsoft Offers Buyouts to 60,000 Staff as AI Push Drives Cost Cuts
Updated
Updated · The Verge · Oct 29
Microsoft Offers Buyouts to 60,000 Staff as AI Push Drives Cost Cuts
3 articles · Updated · The Verge · Oct 29
Summary
Around 60,000 Microsoft employees in the US, UK, Canada and India have been offered voluntary exit packages, the company’s broadest buyout program yet.
The move is aimed at lowering operating costs and headcount so Microsoft can keep spending heavily on AI infrastructure, reflecting Satya Nadella’s long-signaled plan for fewer workers with more AI resources.
The offer greatly expands on a retirement program for about 9,000 employees earlier this year and follows layoffs of 4,800 workers just months ago, with Xbox and sales teams hit hardest.
Microsoft’s headcount fell to about 223,000 as of June 30 from 228,000 a year earlier, the first year-over-year decline in a decade.
Employees have until December to decide; even a 5% acceptance rate would mean 3,000 departures and could shape any further layoffs rumored for November and January.