Microsoft buyout: Why CFO expects ‘very few’ of 60,000 to accept Voluntary Exit Offer
Microsoft CFO Amy Hood expects “very few people” to accept the company’s voluntary exit offer, which is open to around 60,000 employees across several countries. In an internal memo, Hood pointed to the company’s growth opportunities as a reason most eligible workers are likely to stay, as Microsoft looks to reduce its workforce while continuing to invest heavily in artificial intelligence.
“I know there have been some questions on the rationale behind the voluntary exit offer that we announced this week,” Hood wrote in an internal memo, reported by Business Insider.
“Our intent is to offer employees agency if they choose to leave the company on their own terms. We expect very few people to select this offer because of the growth opportunities here at Microsoft.” Hood added as per Business Insider report.
Microsoft’s chief people officer, Amy Coleman, outlined the programme in a separate memo sent to employees on Monday.
“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,” Coleman wrote.
The offer is open to eligible employees in the US, Canada, India and the UK at internal level 70 or below. However, not everyone qualifies, as some sales teams and certain engineering and corporate functions have been excluded.
A Microsoft spokesperson told Business Insider that around 60,000 employees are eligible. The terms are expected to be similar to the company’s usual severance packages.
Employees have until early December to decide whether to accept the offer, with those who leave expected to depart at the end of the year. The spokesperson said the company has no plans for another buyout at present.
The amount Microsoft employees receive will depend on their position and how long they have worked at Microsoft.
When the company laid off employees earlier this year, its US severance package included at least 60 days of base pay, during which employees remained on the payroll. Most workers could receive up to 39 weeks of base pay, depending on their seniority and length of service.
Offers reviewed by Business Insider showed that employees at internal levels 64 and below received one week of base pay for every six months of service. Those at levels 65 to 67 were offered two weeks of base pay for every six months of service.
The voluntary exit offer comes as Microsoft continues to spend heavily on AI infrastructure while cutting jobs.
By allowing eligible employees to leave voluntarily, the company is offering an alternative to compulsory layoffs. The approach could help Microsoft reduce staffing costs while giving workers more control over their next career move.
Hood’s comments also suggest that Microsoft expects many employees to remain with the company, despite the offer. She pointed to the opportunities available within the business as a reason workers may choose to stay.
Microsoft has used similar programmes before to reduce its workforce.
Microsoft's Voluntary Retirement Programme offered a buyout to around 9,000 eligible employees, with eligibility based on age and length of service. About one-third of those eligible accepted the offer, in line with the company’s expectations, a person familiar with the programme told Business Insider in June.
The programme helped Microsoft reduce the share of its workforce affected by subsequent layoffs compared with the previous year, the person said.
Earlier this year, Microsoft also offered a separate retirement buyout. Again, around one-third of eligible employees accepted.
Sayantani Biswas is an assistant editor at Livemint with seven years of experience covering geopolitics, foreign policy, international relations and global power dynamics. She reports on Indian and international politics, including elections worldwide, and specialises in historically grounded analysis of contemporary conflicts and state decisions. She joined Mint in 2021, after covering politics at publications including The Telegraph. <br> She holds an MPhil in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University (2019), with a specialisation in postcolonial Latin American literature. Her research examined economic nationalism through Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America. She also writes on political language, cultural memory and the long shadows of conflict. <br> Biswas grew up in Durgapur, an industrial town in West Bengal shaped by migration, which drew families from across India to the Durgapur Steel Plant. As the only child in a joint family, she spent years listening—almost obsessively—to her grandparents’ testimonies of struggle, fear and loss as they fled Bangladesh during the Partition of 1947. This formative exposure to lived historical memory later converged with her training in Comparative Literature, equipping her to analyse socio-economic structures and their reverberations. <br> Outside the newsroom, she gravitates towards cultural history and critical theory, returning often to texts such as Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. As a journalist, she is committed to accuracy, intellectual rigour and fairness, and believes political reporting demands not only clarity and speed, but historical depth, contextual precision, and a disciplined resistance to spectacle.
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