On October 26th, Microsoft announced that it is offering voluntary resignation programs to employees located in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and India.
According to the Financial Times, sources familiar with the matter revealed that approximately 60,000 employees meet the eligibility criteria.
As of the end of June this year, Microsoft has a total of 223,000 employees. This means that the latest measures will affect approximately 27% of Microsoft's employees.
Microsoft's Chief Human Resources Officer Amy Cornell wrote in a letter to employees: "The voluntary departure program reflects an important shift in how we approach change—creating greater flexibility and, where possible, giving employees more ways to shape the next stage of their careers."
Microsoft stated that the program has a 'time limit', and will provide financial support and career planning resources for eligible employees.
Coleman said that eligible employees will receive an email with detailed information within the next few hours.
American Consumer News & Business Media (CNBC) reported that in order to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence computing, Microsoft has been investing heavily in data centers, providing cloud services to companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and many others. In July, Microsoft stated that its capital expenditure for the September quarter is expected to exceed $50 billion. In the same period last year, its total capital expenditure and financial leasing amounted to $34.9 billion.
This obviously put pressure on Microsoft’s financial situation.
According to people familiar with the matter, in April this year, Microsoft announced a voluntary retirement program, offering buyout options to approximately 8,600 employees. More than 30% of the employees accepted this option. The person also said that the company expects the acceptance rate for the latest round of layoffs to be much lower than this.
Microsoft announced earlier this year that its Xbox video game division will lay off 3,200 employees.
