Microsoft buyout window: 60,000 employees now eligible
The voluntary exit offer covers staff in four countries at experience level 70 or below, with decisions due in early December.
By Robert Thompson ·
Microsoft opened a voluntary exit offer Monday to about 60,000 employees, a pool that represents roughly 27% of the software maker's 223,000-person workforce. The offer applies to workers in the United States, Canada, India and the United Kingdom at experience level 70 or below. A person familiar with the matter said the figure was approximate.
The company is spending heavily on data centers to serve AI computing demand, supplying cloud services to Anthropic, OpenAI and other customers. Microsoft said in July that capital expenditures for the September quarter would top $50 billion, compared with $34.9 billion in capital spending and finance leases a year earlier in the same quarter.
Amy Coleman, Microsoft's executive vice president and chief people officer, told employees in a memo that the program was designed to give workers more say in how their careers proceed. "This builds on what we learned earlier this year through the Voluntary Retirement Program," she wrote. That earlier program, announced in April, was open to about 7% of U.S. employees; more than 30% of those eligible chose to take it, Microsoft said in July. Microsoft also announced plans in July to lay off 4,800 employees.
The new initiative reaches higher up the hierarchy than the April program, extending to the vice president level rather than stopping at senior director level 67, according to the person briefed on the plan. The same person said Microsoft has set no target for how many participants it expects. Some marketing, sales and engineering teams have opted out of the buyout, the person said.
Employees must decide by early December whether to take the offer, and those who participate leave on Dec. 31, the person added. Microsoft is scheduled to report third-quarter results Wednesday.
The company's cash position remains a point of contrast with rivals. Microsoft posted $19.64 billion in positive free cash flow in the second quarter, down 23% year over year, while Alphabet and Amazon both reported negative free cash flow for the period.
Source: CNBC
