A view of the Microsoft office in Shanghai, China on April 8, 2025.
Ying Tang | Nurfoto | getty images
Microsoft It will offer voluntary buyouts to some US employees, a first for the 51-year-old software giant, as the tech industry grapples with major changes spurred by a surge in artificial intelligence.
About 7% of U.S. workers are eligible, according to a person familiar with the plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the numbers are not being made public. The one-time retirement program, announced in a memo Thursday, will be available to U.S. workers at the senior director level and below who have years of employment and are age 70 or older.
Eligible employees and their managers will receive details on May 7. Those with sales incentive plans cannot participate.
Microsoft is increasing capital spending on data centers to provide cloud clients with computing power that can handle generative AI models. Technology colleagues like alphabet And Amazon Just doing the same. Meanwhile, software stocks are falling as coding tools from Anthropic and others threaten to disrupt established companies.
Last year, Microsoft cut some costs through several rounds of layoffs. As of June 2025, the company had 228,000 employees, of which 125,000 were in the US.
“Our hope is that this program gives eligible people the option to take the next step on their own terms with the company’s generous support,” Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s executive vice president and chief people officer, wrote in a memo seen by CNBC.
Additionally, Microsoft is adjusting the way it distributes stock to employees for annual awards. The company will no longer directly link stock to cash bonuses to managers.
This way, “managers have more flexibility to meaningfully recognize high performance,” Coleman wrote.
The company is also simplifying the review process for managers, so they can choose from five salary options for employees instead of nine.
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