Microsoft offers a voluntary exit package to 60,000 staff, with India teams on the list

Microsoft has put a voluntary exit offer in front of about 60,000 of its employees, including staff in India, as it trims its payroll while pouring record sums into data centres and chips.

Amy Coleman, the company’s executive vice-president and chief people officer, announced the offer in a note to employees on 26 October, which the company then published on its blog. It applies to employees at level 70 and below, the band that runs up to vice-president, in teams whose leaders have chosen to take part. Eligible staff in the United States, Canada, India and the United Kingdom were told they would receive an email with their offer details within hours.

“There is no one-size-fits-all approach for every team or every employee,” Coleman wrote, adding that “some organisations are providing the Voluntary Exit Offer, and some are not.” The package is time-limited and bundles financial support with career-planning help. Some data-centre, sales and marketing teams are excluded. Microsoft has not said how much the payout is or how long employees have to decide.

Second programme in six months

The 60,000 figure is the number of people who may say yes, not the number who will leave. It is roughly 27 per cent of the company’s workforce, which stood at 223,000 at the end of June, down from 228,000 at the end of 2025. In April Microsoft offered early retirement to about 7 per cent of its US staff, and close to 30 per cent of those eligible accepted. In July it cut nearly 5,000 jobs, most of them in the Xbox division.

The exits sit alongside the heaviest capital spending in the company’s history. Microsoft spent $41 billion in the April to June quarter and expected about $50 billion in July to September, with roughly two-thirds going on chips and other short-lived equipment. Its spending forecast for the 2026 calendar year was trimmed to $175 billion from $190 billion. Together with Amazon, Alphabet and Meta, it is on course to spend about $700 billion on data centres and computing capacity in 2026.

What it means for Hyderabad

India is one of only four countries named in the offer. Microsoft’s development centre in Hyderabad, opened in 1998, is one of its largest engineering bases outside the United States, and the company has not said how many Indian employees fall inside participating teams. The offer is voluntary, and the announcement carries no target for the number of departures. Microsoft is due to report its quarterly results within days.