Over the last two years, the obvious trend in tech companies has been to trim staff and lower overhead, and in doing so traditionally their stock prices go up. Investors like it when the companies they are investing in are trying to control their overhead. 

Is Microsoft done Trimming their workforce? 

It seems like this last cycle of layoffs has ended, (at least for the near future) because now Microsoft is looking at upper and middle management, and asking them if they would like to leave the company. 

According to seattletimes.com,
‘The company announced Monday morning that eligible employees at the vice president level and below in the U.S., Canada, India and the United Kingdom would receive a “voluntary exit offer” of a standard severance package, based on their location. They’ll have until early December to decide.’ 

Microsoft sent letters out to 60,000 employees who qualified for the buyouts but they expect only a fraction of those people to take them up on their offer. 

Globally, Microsoft employs about 223,000 workers. Of that number, about 52,000 of them work at the Redmond, WA campus. 

Multiple divisions in the company have employees that are eligible for the buyout, including gaming, human resources, Copilot, Windows, and finance. 

After the buyout announcement, Microsoft stock spiked upward and then settled down to about a 1.5% increase. On Wednesday, (10-28-26) the 2027 first quarter financial report for Microsoft will be issued. This is from the time period of July 1st through September 30th. 

How many Microsoft employees will jump at the buyout? It’s hard to say, but that buyout will certainly provide a softer landing for those who accept it than the 15,000 that were laid off last year.