Microsoft and Skydance are asking swaths of their employees to raise their hands to walk out the door.
The two companies each offered voluntary buyouts to workers Monday, reflecting the pressure companies face to shrink head count as they invest in AI -- even if they aren't sure which jobs the technology will eventually replace. At Microsoft, it was the largest voluntary buyout offer in its history, extended to about one quarter of its staff, or 60,000 people.
It is a move more big firms such as Alphabet's Google, Verizon and Intel have adopted as they have culled their workforces in recent years. Seeking volunteers lets companies avoid the optics of a surprise mega-layoff, especially as the public backlash to AI intensifies. Many tech firms have already laid off staff en masse this year, including Netflix, Oracle, Meta Platforms, PayPal and Amazon.
Buyouts can also minimize the hit to employee morale, by giving staffers some choice in the decision to leave. "It makes the really complicated, emotional letting go of people a little easier," said Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. He added that buyout offers tend to disproportionately draw older staffers a few years away from retirement.
In a memo to employees, Microsoft Chief People Officer Amy Coleman said the buyout was new for the company. "We'll learn from it," she wrote.
Skydance, the parent company formed from the just-completed $81 billion merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros., didn't disclose how many employees would be eligible for its buyout. It extended the offer just as it imposed a new mandate requiring workers to be in the office five days a week.
The blunt nature of buyouts -- offered to multiple departments at the same time -- often makes it hard to predict how employees will respond. The risk to companies: They often attract in-demand workers who can more easily find a job elsewhere.
Both Microsoft and Skydance sought to target the offer to some extent. Microsoft said that it was excluding some divisions from its buyout program, and that participation would depend on its business priorities and workforce needs.
Likewise, Skydance bosses told staff that they would offer different terms for different employees: Those who qualify for a buyout will receive "personalized details and terms, and a window to decide whether to accept this one-time offer."
Microsoft in April announced a voluntary retirement program, which offered around 8,600 employees buyouts, and more than 30% accepted the offer, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company expects a far lower percentage to accept the latest buyouts, the person said.
Microsoft employed 223,000 employees as of the end of June, 5,000 fewer than it did at the end of 2025.
Many technology companies are reluctant to give firm numbers on what their head counts will look like in the years ahead, in part, because their executives say they are still trying to figure it out. "We don't really know what the optimal size of the company will be in the future," Meta Platforms' chief financial officer, Susan Li, told investors this spring.
But fast-rising spending on AI is pushing companies to make tough choices now to cut costs, workforce experts say.
"They're having to re-evaluate their current workforce so they can pay for the AI and the tools they're going to use in the future," said Andy Decker, CEO of the recruiting firm Goodwin Recruiting. "Shareholders want to see cost-cutting, they want to see efficiency."
In C-suites and beyond, much of the focus now is on the ratio of employees to AI agents inside companies, said Josh Bersin, a human-resources analyst who runs his own advisory firm. Senior leaders feel growing pressure to show productivity and increase metrics such as revenue per employee. A buyout program, reducing the overall size of the workforce, can help nudge those numbers up, he said.
"This is the inevitable reaction to the workforce and AI and the financial pressures," he said.
For workers, the buyout offers should act as a warning shot, HR specialists say -- a sign that more cost cuts are likely to follow, if companies can't reach cost-savings goals now.
"If they can't do it through a voluntary separation," Challenger said, "it always turns into an involuntary situation."
Comments