60,000 employees eligible for Microsoft voluntary exit offer
Key Facts
Microsoft announced a time-limited voluntary exit offer for eligible employees in participating teams, saying the move provides an additional option for adapting to changing business needs. The Associated Press estimated that about 60,000 employees, or roughly 27% of the global workforce, are eligible. That figure does not indicate how many employees will accept the offer or actually leave. In its announcement, the company said the program is "time-limited and voluntary," with participation depending on each business's priorities, customer commitments and workforce needs. This frames the program as an option available to specific groups, not an announcement of an actual workforce reduction on this scale.
According to the company announcement, the offer is limited to employees in participating teams in Canada, India, the United Kingdom and the United States who are at job level 70 or below. These conditions define eligibility by geography and role, rather than making the program available to all employees worldwide. The figure of 60,000 means that this number is eligible to consider the offer, according to the Associated Press estimate; it does not mean the company expects all of them to leave. Microsoft had about 223,000 full-time employees at the end of June 2026. That figure puts the eligible group in context relative to the total workforce, while the actual number of participants remains unspecified in the available information.
Amy Coleman, Microsoft's chief human resources officer, said the program gives eligible employees a supported option to transition out of the company and gives participating teams another way to adapt as business needs change. The company described the offer as part of its response to workforce needs, business priorities and customer commitments. In its announcement, the company did not say the program was intended to reduce operating expenses or fund artificial intelligence investments. The announcement alone therefore does not establish that employees will leave in numbers matching the share represented by the eligible group. The move comes alongside quarterly results showing strong growth in revenue and cloud, while the company's guidance indicated continued need for high capital spending.
In the quarter ended September 30, 2026, the first quarter of its fiscal 2027, Microsoft's revenue was $92.279 billion, up 19% year over year. Operating income rose 21% to $45.915 billion, while net income was $36.629 billion, compared with $27.747 billion in the same period a year earlier, a 32% increase. These figures highlight expansion in revenue and operating and net income during the same period in which the company announced the voluntary offer. In cloud operations, Microsoft Cloud revenue was $63.9 billion, up 30% year over year. Azure revenue also rose 48%, putting the service's growth at the heart of the quarter's results.
The company's data showed commercial remaining performance obligations rising 73% to $677 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2027. The figure reflects the scale of commitments tied to remaining commercial business, as cloud revenue posted annual growth of 30%. On the results call, the company said some capacity deliveries from third parties had been delayed until the second half of the fiscal year. For the second quarter, it said it expects capital expenditures to exceed $50 billion. This guidance links continued high spending to capacity expansion, with some deliveries shifting to a later period in the fiscal year.
Microsoft forecast year-over-year Azure revenue growth of between 49% and 50% in the second quarter of fiscal 2027, compared with growth of 48% in the first quarter. After the results announcement, the company's shares rose more than 5% in extended trading, according to Reuters coverage. The report said the company generated $18.6 billion in free cash flow during the first quarter. That puts the Azure growth outlook and capital spending of more than $50 billion in the second quarter among the key indicators ahead for investors. The voluntary offer remains subject to employee eligibility and the decision to participate, and the company has not announced an expected number of departures.