Staff at Microsoft continue to recieve emails they’d probably rather not be getting. After telling some the other week of plans to mandate four days in the office starting in February and presiding over multiple rounds of layoffs at their gaming division Xbox, Microsoft are now offering volutary buyouts to 60,000, roughly 25% of their overall headcount.
Business Insider report that staff in the US, Canada, India, and the UK, but that not every team within the company is on the eligibility list. There’s no indication at current as to whether Xbox will be affected, with exec Matt Booty having noted when announcing September’s layoffs that the division was “roughly three-quarters of the way” through efforts to get rid of 3200 staff in total. According a report last week, further Xbox cuts were being planned for this month, November and January.
“The Voluntary Exit Offer reflects an important part of how we’re evolving our approach to change: creating greater flexibility and, where possible, more ways for employees to shape their next chapter,” Microsoft chief people officer Amy Coleman wrote in a memo to staff. “This builds on what we learned earlier this year through the Voluntary Retirement Program.
“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. There is no one-size-fits-all approach for every team or every employee. These are a few of the ways we’re trying to meet different business needs while continuing to create opportunities for our own people to grow and contribute.”
According to Business Insider, 9000 staff were offered buyouts in the previous voluntary retirement program Coleman mentioned, with around a third taking it.
Solidarity to Microsoft staff affected by this latest attempt to fire people into the sun, reportedly as a result of Microsoft straining to pour boatloads of money into AI data centers.
As of writing, Microsoft are still subject to a BDS movement boycott over their reported ties to the Israeli military.