Microsoft offers voluntary exit packages to 60,000 staff — Indian teams eligible

Microsoft will offer voluntary exit packages to about 60,000 employees — roughly a quarter of its global workforce — the company said on Monday, as it seeks to trim costs while continuing to spend heavily on artificial intelligence.

Staff at vice-president level and below on select teams in the United States, Canada, India and Britain are eligible, a company spokesperson said. Some groups are excluded, including certain employees working on data centres, as well as parts of sales and marketing.

Amy Coleman, executive vice-president and chief people officer, told employees in a memo that 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".

It is the second such offer Microsoft has made this year. In April, the company reportedly gave about seven per cent of its US workforce the option to retire early, and around 30 per cent of those eligible took up the plan, according to CNBC.

Microsoft had about 223,000 employees globally at the end of June, according to regulatory filings, down from about 228,000 a year earlier. On that base, the new offer covers roughly 27 per cent of the workforce. The company is expected to report quarterly earnings later this week.

Microsoft has not disclosed how many employees it expects to accept the offer, or what the cost is likely to be. Voluntary separation schemes — where employees choose to leave, usually with enhanced benefits — are distinct from layoffs, and companies generally cannot predict take-up in advance. Such schemes are common practice in the Indian IT sector.

India is among Microsoft's largest engineering and development bases outside the United States, and the inclusion of Indian teams in the eligibility list means the exercise will be watched closely by the country's technology workforce.

The offer comes amid a wider wave of job reductions across the technology sector, as companies redirect money towards AI infrastructure. Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta are collectively on track to spend roughly $700 billion this year on AI data centres, chips and computing infrastructure.

Microsoft said in July that it spent $41 billion in the April-June quarter and expected spending to rise to $50 billion in the July-September period. It also lowered its forecast for total spending in the 2026 calendar year to $175 billion from $190 billion. Chief financial officer Amy Hood told analysts that about two-thirds of the spending goes towards "short-lived assets", mainly chips, reflecting customer demand for "both AI and non-AI infrastructure".

In July, Microsoft cut close to 5,000 jobs, heavily targeting its Xbox gaming division.

Other technology companies have made similar moves. Meta laid off around 10 per cent of its global workforce in May, affecting about 8,000 employees, and said in April it would cancel plans to hire 6,000 more people while shifting 7,000 others into AI-related roles. Amazon announced 16,000 job cuts globally in January. Uber said in September it would cut about 10 per cent of its staff, estimated at 3,000 or more. eBay laid off 1,000 employees earlier this month, after an earlier round that affected 800, and Netflix is reportedly set to cut around six per cent of its workforce, according to US media reports.

Concerns about the effect of AI on employment have grown alongside the spending. Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei is among industry figures who have publicly warned of large-scale job losses as the technology is adopted more widely.