Microsoft Wants 60,000 Employees to Choose to Leave. Who Will Raise Their Hand?
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Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce, according to Reuters and other outlets that reported the program yesterday. Business Insider broke the story. Microsoft had 223,000 full-time employees as of June 30, 2026, so 60,000 is more than 26% of that figure.
The offer covers employees at level 70 and below on participating teams in the U.S., Canada, India, and the U.K. Level 70 on Microsoft’s internal scale includes general managers and some employees with vice president titles, but not corporate vice presidents. Each business leader decides whether the team takes part, so not every eligible group is in. Reports differ on exactly which teams are included. Copilot, Xbox, Windows, and finance were named, and sales and marketing were reported as excluded.
Employees have until the first week of December to decide. The package equals standard severance: base pay based on tenure and level, continued stock vesting, healthcare coverage for a fixed period, and career transition services. There is no age or tenure requirement.
Chief People Officer Amy Coleman wrote in a staff memo that the offer gives eligible employees “a new choice to make that transition now with support” and gives participating organizations “another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs.” Microsoft says the offer does not replace layoffs, which remain possible, and it has not said how many people it expects to accept.
It is the latest of several workforce moves this year. In the spring, Microsoft offered its first-ever voluntary retirement program to about 8,750 eligible U.S. employees, and about 30% took it. The company disclosed a $900 million charge for that program in April. In July, it cut about 4,800 jobs, roughly 2% of global staff, and GeekWire reports hundreds more cuts in September.
The money explains the timing. Microsoft’s forecast for calendar 2026 capital spending is about $175 billion, according to CFO Amy Hood on the July earnings call, with most of it going to AI data centers and chips. Earnings are due Wednesday after the market closes, two days after the buyout news. I read payroll as the highest cost Microsoft can still control, though the company has not tied the offer to the spending.
Buyouts and layoffs both end with a smaller company, but they pick people differently. In a layoff, the company decides who goes. In a buyout, the employee decides, and the first hands up usually belong to people who feel confident about landing somewhere else quickly. Those are often the people a company would least want to lose.
Look at who is eligible. Copilot is on the list, which suggests even Microsoft’s own AI teams are being asked to justify their headcount. If you hire in tech, finance, or gaming, Microsoft says it expects far fewer takers than the spring program drew, but even a fraction of 60,000 is a lot of experienced people weighing their options before the first week of December. Anyone with severance coming has less urgency, so a vague role description or a slow process will lose them to a company that moves faster and says more. If you work at another big company spending heavily on AI, expect your employer to look at the same math.
If you’re planning to hire people leaving big tech, talk to us about hiring before the first week of December arrives. And if you’re weighing an offer like this, see what’s open right now.
Skydance Paired a Five-Day Office Rule With a Buyout, and Paramount Already Showed How That Ends
Skydance told employees yesterday that they’ll be expected in the office five days a week, and that anyone who doesn’t see a future there can take a voluntary buyout. Co-CEOs David Ellison and Ynon Kreiz announced both in a staff memo. “We believe in-person collaboration is vital to our culture and to the success of our business,” they wrote, and “As we bring our teams together, we recognize that not everyone will see their future here, and we respect that.”
Skydance now owns both Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount completed the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition on October 6, in a deal reported at roughly $110 billion, and the combined company operates under the Skydance name. Ellison brought the same five-day policy to Paramount after acquiring it last year, and former Warner Bros. Discovery employees worked a three-day schedule until now. The policy will phase in by location. The buyout is a one-time offer with individual terms, and the company has not said how many people are eligible.
Management has promised about $6 billion in annualized cost savings within three years, with about $2 billion targeted in the first year. Management says most of the savings will come from technology, procurement, and real estate, and not mainly from labor. An August report commissioned by the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity and the L.A. County Film Office estimated the merger could cost the county about 4,500 jobs over three years. Bloomberg’s headline describes the buyouts as coming before wider cuts.
When a company puts a five-day office mandate and a buyout in the same memo, I read it as a headcount plan. Skydance says most of its savings won’t come from staff cuts, and I’d like to believe it. Still, Ellison is offering people a way out on the same day he makes the job harder for anyone who built a life around hybrid work.
Paramount’s own history gives that read some support. After Ellison’s five-day policy took effect there, about 600 employees at vice-president level and below in the Los Angeles and New York offices took buyouts, which cost Paramount $185 million, according to company filings reported by Fortune. The Owl Labs survey I covered in September found 41% of hybrid and remote workers would start looking for a more flexible job if flexibility disappeared, and 39% would turn down a job that requires full-time office work.
The people most likely to walk away from a full return to office are often experienced employees with options and caregivers who need flexibility. Neither group is easy to replace. If you hire in Los Angeles outside the studios and need seasoned production, marketing, finance, or operations people, a clear flexible-schedule offer gives you a real edge. If you need experienced people quickly, explore our staffing services.
Staffing your team doesn’t have to be hard.
Reach out and see how we can help.
Proton Will Interview Employees About AI Before It Decides Who Stays
Proton, the company behind ProtonMail, told employees yesterday that it will “re-interview” staff about how they use AI at work, according to an internal email obtained by 404 Media. The email calls the interviews “consequential” and says the assessments will feed a broader review that may lead to changes in “roles, responsibilities, and continued employment.”
CEO Andy Yen began by interviewing more than 40 senior leaders in Engineering and Product, and the process is now extending across the company, though not every employee will be re-interviewed. Each interviewer will come from outside the employee’s own team and reporting line, drawn from leaders who “demonstrate strong AI capability.” Interviews take place November 4 to 11, about nine days after the email went out. Employees are asked to bring concrete examples of how AI changed their work and the results it produced.
Proton did not respond to 404 Media before publication, but it later replied on Reddit. TechRadar reports that Proton said it is “not doing layoffs and using AI as an excuse,” that it faces a talent shortage and is hiring across the organization, and that it wants to identify who needs extra support.
Re-interviewing your own employees for the jobs they already hold is a new move, and I expect other companies to copy it. Testing whether people can use AI well is reasonable, and Proton’s description of the goal, finding who needs support, is a fair one. What concerns me is the format. A one-on-one interview with a stranger from another team measures how well someone talks about AI, while the thing an employer should care about is whether AI is improving the work. Most companies could answer that by looking at output.
It also raises a training question. ZipRecruiter’s AI Worker Report found only 28.9% of workers got extensive AI training, and 54.7% of entry-level workers are teaching themselves, as I covered in yesterday’s analysis of the AI training gap. A company that reviews people on AI use needs to show it has given them the tools and the time to learn.
If you’re an employee, get ready for this question now, wherever you work. Have two or three specific examples of a task you handle differently because of AI and what changed as a result: time saved, errors caught, or output added. “I use ChatGPT sometimes” won’t hold up in that interview.
Private Hiring Has Cooled for Two Weeks, but the Pace Is Still Double July’s
In the 4 weeks ending October 10, U.S. private employers added an average of 16,750 jobs per week, according to ADP’s NER Pulse. ADP says “Hiring slowed for the second week.” The 4-week average was 26,000 for the period ending September 26, 17,500 for the period ending October 3, and now 16,750.
The longer view looks better. In late July, the average was 8,250 jobs a week, so even after two slower weeks, the pace is about double where it was 12 weeks ago. It matches the level for the week ending August 29, which was also 16,750.
One flag on the data: last week’s release put the period ending October 3 at 18,500, and this week’s table shows 17,500. ADP does not call that a revision, but the pattern of revisions I noted in last week’s ADP analysis continues. The numbers are preliminary, seasonally adjusted, a 4-week moving average, and lag by 2 weeks. ADP produces them with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, and the next update comes November 10. ADP sells payroll and workforce products, so I treat its weekly series as a useful indicator and not a full count of the labor market.
I wouldn’t read too much into two soft weeks. A 4-week average moving from 26,000 to 16,750 says hiring cooled from its September pace, about 36% lower, and employers are still adding jobs every week. The 12-week trend matters more. Private hiring roughly doubled from late July to now, which matches what I’m hearing from employers: they’re filling the roles they need and staying cautious about adding anything beyond that.
On the same day Microsoft makes its offer, the private sector as a whole is still adding jobs. Big-company cuts get the headlines, but most hiring happens at companies whose names you’ll never see in one. If the November 10 update shows a third straight drop, I’ll take the slowdown more seriously.
