Microsoft Offers Buyouts to 60,000 Workers Outside Data Centers and Sales

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The buyouts are being offered to teams in the United States, Canada, India and the United Kingdom, at the level of vice president and below, according to the report.

Microsoft has announced tens of thousands of layoffs in recent years. One of the most recent rounds before the one reported today took place in July, when the company offered buyouts to 8,750 employees who were of retirement age, and more than 30% of them accepted the offer, the report said.

Overall, Microsoft’s headcount has remained roughly flat at around 223,000 since 2022, per the report.

When announcing the elimination of 4,800 roles, or about 2.1% of its global workforce, in July, Microsoft Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer Amy Coleman said the company was focusing on priorities that will keep it ready for a fast-changing industry.

Over the previous year, Microsoft had also redeployed 4,000 people into new roles, Coleman said.

“The ‘why’ is this: Our business is changing because the world around it is changing,” Coleman said in a July 6 blog post. “The way technology is built, deployed and used is transforming faster than at any point in my time here. Our customers’ needs are shifting, the business models that serve them are shifting, and that means the work itself — what we do, where we focus and how we’re organized — has to transform too.”

Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas (CGC) said in a report issued in June that technology companies in the United States had announced 38,242 job cuts in May, an almost two-year high, and that artificial intelligence was the main reason cited by employers for those layoffs.

“The labor market is being reshaped by technology in real time,” Andy Challenger, labor and workplace expert and chief revenue officer at CGC, said at the time in a report. “AI is now the leading reason companies give for cutting jobs, and the primary industry citing it is technology.”