US corporation Microsoft has launched a voluntary severance program with compensation packages that could affect about 60,000 employees in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and India. That is roughly a quarter of the tech giant's total global workforce, infohub.kz reports.
According to ArsTechnica, the offer is aimed at specialists up to and including job level 70 and covers divisions selected in line with the company's current business priorities and staffing needs.
The Voluntary Exit Option (VEO) program provides a substantial compensation package for participants. In particular, for employees at levels 65 through 67, the corporation is offering two weeks of base pay for every six months of service. The terms also preserve continued scheduled vesting of corporate shares, health insurance during the transition period, and access to professional career-planning resources.
Tech giant executives stressed that the initiative is intended for specialists who had already been considering a change of career path outside the corporation.
This is already the second such initiative in 2026: in April, a similar voluntary retirement offer went to 8,750 long-serving US employees. The new program has a far broader reach and is tied to the company's reallocation of internal resources amid the rapid development of artificial intelligence. The approach allows Microsoft to cut costs flexibly without direct administrative pressure.