Microsoft is offering voluntary exit packages to roughly 60,000 employees in the US, Canada, UK and India, ahead of quarterly earnings and a $175 billion AI capital spending plan.

Microsoft is offering voluntary exit packages to about 60,000 employees — roughly 27 percent of its global workforce — the company confirmed on Monday, in its most substantial workforce reduction in more than a year.

The offer, called the Voluntary Exit Offer, was announced in a memo from Amy Coleman, Microsoft's executive vice president and chief people officer. It is available to eligible staff at level 70 and below in Canada, India, the United Kingdom and the United States, and covers employees in units including AI experiences, Copilot, finance, human resources, Xbox and Windows + Devices. Marketing, commercial business and security organizations are excluded, according to a source familiar with the matter cited by Reuters.

A time-limited window

Employees have until December to decide whether to accept, and participants will leave the company on Dec. 31, according to CNBC reporting. Microsoft said eligible employees would receive details by email within hours of the announcement.

Terms are expected to resemble the company's standard severance package. Unlike the voluntary retirement program Microsoft ran earlier this year, the new offer carries no age or tenure requirement and extends to some senior leaders, Business Insider reported. GeekWire noted that Microsoft expects a smaller share of eligible employees to accept than in the spring program.

"This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support," Coleman wrote. "It also gives participating organizations another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs."

Not every organization is participating. "There is no one-size-fits-all approach for every team or every employee," Coleman said, adding that the program is new to the company and "we'll learn from it."

Costs, AI spending and the earnings test

The timing is not incidental. Microsoft reports first-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Wednesday, and the company has forecast $175 billion in capital expenditures for the 2026 calendar year as it builds out data centers and chips for artificial intelligence. Investors have pressed the company on whether those outlays will generate returns commensurate with their scale.

Analysis from KeyBanc, cited by CRN, attributed the exit offer to Microsoft's effort to protect margins as infrastructure costs climb. The bank noted revenue per employee reached $1.5 million in the past fiscal year, up from $1.1 million the year before.

Microsoft had 223,000 full-time employees as of June 30, down 5,000 from a year earlier. Shares rose about 1 percent on Monday and are up roughly 10 percent this year.

A year of attrition by other means

The buyout follows a series of reductions. Microsoft offered voluntary retirement packages to about 7 percent of its U.S. workforce, roughly 9,000 people, earlier in the year; more than 30 percent of eligible employees participated, putting retirements at around 3,000. In July the company cut 4,800 roles, about 2.1 percent of its workforce, concentrated in its commercial and Xbox gaming businesses, and said it would divest up to five studios.

If the new offer draws participation at a similar rate to the spring program, roughly 18,000 employees would depart — about 8 percent of the global workforce — though Microsoft has not projected an outcome.

Coleman said in July that eliminated roles were "not being replaced by AI," while acknowledging that AI is changing how work gets done. She did not mention AI in Monday's memo.

Microsoft is not alone. Intel, Oracle, Nutanix and Cisco have all announced job cuts in recent weeks as technology companies redirect spending toward AI infrastructure.

What remains unclear

Microsoft has declined to say how many employees in each country received the offer, including in Canada. The company has also not disclosed which organizations chose not to participate. The scale of actual departures will depend on acceptance rates that will not be known until the window closes at the end of the year.