Microsoft has offered around 60,000 employees the option to leave the company voluntarily, days before it reports quarterly results and less than four months after it cut 4,800 jobs.
Amy Coleman, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer at Microsoft, announced the Voluntary Exit Offer in a post to staff on Monday, which the company has published on its official blog. The offer was first reported by Business Insider, and Microsoft confirmed to TechCrunch that around 60,000 employees are eligible, roughly a quarter of the 223,000 people it employed at the end of June. Coleman says the offer builds on what Microsoft learned from its earlier retirement programme and gives participating teams another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs.
The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us. We’ll learn from it. At the same time, we’ll keep helping people focus on the work that matters most, build new skills and, where it makes sense, find new opportunities across Microsoft.
What the Microsoft Voluntary Exit Offer Includes
According to Coleman's post, the offer is open to eligible employees at level 70 and below in participating teams, and comes with financial support and career planning resources. Microsoft told GeekWire there is no age or tenure requirement and that performance is not a factor, adding that level 70 includes some staff with vice president titles but not corporate vice presidents.
Business Insider, which reviewed offer documents, reported that the terms match Microsoft's standard US severance and vary by level, tenure and location. According to its reporting, employees at level 64 and below are offered one week of base pay for every six months of service, rising to two weeks at levels 65 to 67, alongside continued stock vesting and health insurance. Staff have until early December to decide, and CNBC reported that those who accept will leave on 31 December.
