Microsoft offers buyouts to 60,000 staff

Microsoft's headcount has already been shrinking. The company now employs around 223,000 people as of June 30th, 5,000 fewer than the 228,000 it employed in 2025 — the first year-over-year decline in a decade. The buyout offer sits alongside regular layoffs: this week's offer arrived just months after Microsoft laid off 4,800 employees, cuts that impacted its Xbox and commercial sales teams the most, and the company laid off 4 percent of its workforce in July last year. The offer is practically the same as regular severance terms at Microsoft, which is why the acceptance rate will likely be far lower than the more than 30 percent of the 9,000 eligible employees who accepted a retirement offer earlier this year. Still, the scale is unusual: even a 5 percent acceptance rate would mean 3,000 employees leaving. Some observers argue the cuts address real internal problems. Merill Fernando, a former Microsoft Entra product manager, said Microsoft needs fewer people and described small orgs with layers on layers and silos everywhere. Nadella has acknowledged that internal tensions are real, saying social cohesion is not a goal and winning in the marketplace is a goal. How he manages the transition to an AI-shaped workforce may shape his legacy as much as the growth of the past decade.