Google voluntary buyout: What do employees get in severance package? Which 7 countries are included? Explained
Google reportedly expanded employee buyout offers to several countries this year as it looks to rein in rising costs amid heavy spending on artificial intelligence.
The search engine company confirmed to Reuters that it began offering voluntary exit packages in June to some employees in five countries — Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Switzerland.
The latest buyouts follow voluntary exit programs that have been offered since last year to employees in some divisions in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Reuters could not determine how many employees had accepted the latest round of offers, a figure that had not previously been reported.
The terms of Google's latest voluntary exit programme have not been disclosed in all five countries. However, details of the offer in Switzerland indicate what eligible employees could receive.
According to Reuters, Google offered Swiss employees one month's salary for each year of service. The payout was capped at 12 months' salary. This means employees with 12 or more years of service could receive a maximum severance payment equivalent to one year's salary.
Google announced the packages in Switzerland in mid-June and responded to employees who applied by mid-July, sources said.
One person said at least four employees in a team of about 50 had accepted the offer. Google laid off more than 200 employees in Switzerland in 2023, prompting staff protests and a walkout.
It remains unclear whether employees in Canada, France, Germany and Japan have been offered the same severance formula. Google has not publicly shared country-specific details of the financial package or explained whether the terms vary by an employee's role, experience, or length of service.
In 2025, Google reportedly offered mid- and senior-level employees up to 14 weeks of base pay plus 10-year bonuses, extended health coverage and accelerated vesting of a portion of their stock awards (RSUs).
Google's voluntary exit programme does not cover its entire workforce. Eligibility depends on the employee's location, business division and role within the organisation, FirstPost reported.
According to Reuters, employees at Google Cloud and the AI unit DeepMind have been excluded from past buyout offers amid the push to integrate AI tools into workflows.
In Switzerland, where Google employs about 5,000 people and has a major engineering hub in Zurich, three people familiar with the matter said the program covered multiple divisions but excluded DeepMind.
Employees began leaving in August after Google offered voluntary exit packages in the country, sources told Reuters.
Last year in June, Google extended voluntary exit offers to employees in its communications, core, knowledge and information, marketing, and research teams, while cutting one-third of its manager roles. The Knowledge and Information division includes major businesses such as Search, advertising and commerce, reports added.
In February 2026, Google introduced another round of voluntary exit packages for selected employees in its Global Business Organisation (GBO) in the US. Eligible functions included solutions teams, sales, corporate development, and others.
However, the programme excluded large customer sales teams and other customer-facing roles, in which workforce reductions could affect client relationships, First Post added.
This suggests that Google has been tailoring its exit offers to individual business requirements rather than applying a uniform policy across the company.
Unlike conventional layoffs, voluntary exit programmes allow employees to choose whether to leave in exchange for financial compensation.
Google first introduced the programme in the US in 2025. "In 2025, some of our teams introduced a voluntary exit program with severance," a Google spokesperson told Reuters in a statement.
“This past summer, in June, we expanded this program globally in a few countries to support our important work ahead,” the statement added.
Executives have described the program as an option for employees who no longer feel aligned with the company's pace or direction. In at least one case, the company followed its voluntary offers with a round of layoffs in a division.
The move follows Microsoft, which, last week, offered voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees in an effort to contain costs.
The move comes amid mounting AI spending that has unnerved Wall Street and dented Alphabet's stock price. Alphabet's workforce has grown steadily in recent quarters, but it has sought to shift resources toward priority areas.
Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi has repeatedly highlighted AI and cloud computing as key hiring priorities in quarterly earnings presentations.
According to a CNBC report from October 2025, Google laid off 100 employees in design-related roles as part of the company's broader move toward an artificial intelligence (AI) focus.
(With inputs from Reuters)
For about a decade, Livemint—News Desk has been a credible source for authentic and timely news, and well-researched analysis on national news, business, personal finance, corporates, politics and geopolitics. We bring the latest updates on all the listed companies on BSE and NSE, startups, mutual funds, Union ministries, geopolitics, and untapped human interest stories from around the world, helping our readers to stay informed on the latest developments around the globe. Our Coverage Areas 1. Companies: Comprehensive news and analysis on listed and unlisted companies, corporate announcements, corporate chatter, C-suite, business trends, hiring alerts, layoffs, work-life balance, world's top billionaires and richest and more. 2. Personal finance: Insights into mutual funds, small savings schemes like - PPF, SSY, post office savings scheme, stock to watch, personal loans, credit cards, top bank FDs, real estate, income tax and more. 3. Politics: Comprehensive coverage of general elections, state elections and bypolls, Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabha, Parliament, PMO, PIB, finance ministry, home ministry, among other union ministries and government departments. 4. National News: From metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and e to untapped stories from rural India, we cover human interest, health, education, crime and courts, and law and order, among other areas of public interest. 5. Economy: In-depth analysis of India's macro and micro-economic indicators like- GDP, inflation, forex, fiscal deficit, current account deficit, interest rate cycle, economic recovery, RBI circulars, indirect taxes, GST, Insolvency and Bankruptcy imports, exports and everything that impacts Indian economy. 6. Geopolitics: Well-rounded and deeply researched coverage on US News, Oval Office European Union, Ukraine Russia War, middle-east crisis, royal families and global leaders like - Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping and premiers of other leading economies in the world. Meet the Team 1. Gulam Jeelani, Political Affairs Editor 2. Sugam Singhal, Senior Assistant Editor 3. Chanchal, Assistant Editor 4. Sanchari Ghosh, Chief Content Producer 5. Pratik Prashant Mukane, Chief Content Producer 6. Sayantani Biswas, Chief Content Producer 7. Ravi Hari, Deputy Chief Content Producer 8. Garvit Bhirani, Deputy Chief Content Producer 9. Akriti Anand, Senior Content Producer 10. Jocelyn Felix Fernandes, Senior Content Producer 11. Swastika Das Sharma, Content Producer 12. Mausam Jha, Content Producer 13. Riya R Alex, Trainee Content Producer
Catch all the Business News , Corporate news , Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
More
✕
Wait for it…
Oops! Looks like you have exceeded the limit to bookmark the image. Remove some to bookmark this image.