Microsoft opens voluntary exit to about 60,000 staff, India included, as AI spending climbs

Microsoft has offered about 60,000 employees the option of leaving the company of their own accord. The offer covers staff in India as well as eligible employees in the US, the UK and Canada. The company is one of the largest technology firms in the world.

The pool of eligible staff is close to 27 per cent of Microsoft's global workforce. That does not mean 60,000 people are losing their jobs. Nobody will be pushed out under the scheme, and it is not a forced retrenchment. Each eligible employee can decide whether to stay or go.

Chief Human Resources Officer Amy Coleman announced the plan in an internal message to staff. Employees at Level 70 and below can take it up, but it will not apply in every department. Eligibility will depend on each department's operational needs, its responsibilities towards customers and its business priorities. Reports say staff in certain data centre, sales and marketing teams are excluded, which makes the decision especially significant for people working in those areas. Anyone who opts for the scheme must leave by December 31.

Those who go will receive financial support and guidance on planning their careers. The company will also help them find their next job and move into a different line of work. A company spokesperson said eligible employees would be given the option of leaving. The package is expected to resemble the compensation usually paid when a job ends.

Microsoft has run a voluntary exit scheme before, and eligible employees responded well then. This time the offer is on a far larger scale.

The timing is tied to the company's push into artificial intelligence (AI). Microsoft has planned heavy spending on data centres, advanced chips, servers and other AI infrastructure. Its capital expenditure in 2026 is expected to reach about $175 billion. Building, scaling and running AI technology takes very large sums, and this has made the company pay closer attention to costs and to how it manages its workforce.

Microsoft is also said to want to concentrate on employees who can work on future technological challenges. In some cases, if a person who accepts the exit offer has the required skills and special expertise, the company may consider keeping that person.

This is not the first workforce change this year. In July, Microsoft cut about 4,800 positions, and the new scheme is likely to bring further changes to how the workforce is structured.

The move reflects a wider shift in the technology sector. AI is changing the nature of some traditional jobs, while demand is rising for skills such as machine learning, cloud computing, data science and AI engineering. Google was earlier reported to have offered a financial package to employees in some departments to leave voluntarily. Meta, for its part, made large cuts to its workforce from the end of 2022.

It is not yet clear how many employees in India will actually take up the scheme. The country-wise breakdown of those eligible and the final terms of the package have also not been made public.