Microsoft expects fewer than 3,000 employees to accept the voluntary buyout package it offered to about 60,000 workers, or 27% of its 223,000 global staff. The program covers participating teams in the US, Canada, the UK and India at internal level 70, or vice president level, and below, while excluding data center, sales, marketing and security personnel. Eligible workers have until early December to decide and will depart Dec 31 on standard severance terms, following an April voluntary retirement offer that more than 30% of 8,750 eligible employees accepted before Microsoft cut 4,800 jobs in July.
CFO Amy Hood included estimated expenses from the buyout offer in fiscal second quarter guidance of $32.7B to $32.9B in cost of goods sold and $18.5B to $18.6B in operating expenses. Hood also lowered calendar 2026 capital expenditure guidance to about $170B from roughly $175B after third party GPU capacity deliveries were delayed into the first half of calendar 2027, a reduction that sent shares of neocloud providers CoreWeave, IREN and Nebius lower after first quarter capital spending excluding leases came in at $39.37B against estimates of $45.93B.