Microsoft job cuts: a voluntary exit offer to 60,000 staff arrives as AI spending climbs, but Microsoft gives no AI reason

Microsoft is offering voluntary exit packages to roughly 60,000 employees, about a quarter of its workforce, in the US, Canada, the UK and India, GeekWire reported on 26 October 2026. In a memo, chief people officer Amy Coleman wrote that the offer "gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support." It reaches up to level 70, which includes general managers and some employees with vice president titles, with no age, tenure or performance condition. Microsoft does not tie the offer to AI. A spokesperson told GeekWire it is not a sign the company needs fewer employees but one of several ways it adjusts to changing business needs, and the company said it is not a replacement for layoffs, which stay part of its approach depending on business conditions. The AI link comes from the reporting around it: GeekWire notes that Microsoft, like its peers, is under pressure from Wall Street to hold down operating costs while it pours tens of billions of dollars into data centers and AI infrastructure. Microsoft's headcount was 223,000 on 30 June, down from 228,000 a year earlier, before its July layoffs. When it offered a retirement programme this spring, about 30 percent of the roughly 8,750 eligible US employees took it, which Coleman said reduced the size of July's layoffs. The 60,000 is the number eligible, not the number expected to leave, and because Microsoft attributes none of this to AI it is not counted in the tracker.