Microsoft Plans First-Ever Voluntary Employee Buyout (cnbc.com)
- Reference: 0181941096
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/04/23/1628235/microsoft-plans-first-ever-voluntary-employee-buyout
- Source link: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/23/microsoft-plans-first-voluntary-retirement-program-for-us-employees.html
> Last year Microsoft removed some costs through multiple rounds of layoffs. As of June 2025, the company had 228,000 employees. "Our hope is that this program gives those eligible the choice to take that next step on their own terms, with generous company support," Amy Coleman, Microsoft's executive vice president and chief people officer, wrote in a memo viewed by CNBC.
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> Additionally, Microsoft is adjusting the way it doles out stock to employees for annual rewards. The company will no longer make managers tie stock directly to cash bonuses. 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 pay options for employees instead of nine.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/23/microsoft-plans-first-voluntary-retirement-program-for-us-employees.html
Microsoft can buy me out (Score:3)
Hey Microsoft, give me a million dollars and I promise not to talk bad about your crappy software anymore
Re: (Score:2)
Hey... I'm cheap. If they give me a lifetime XBox Premium subscription, I'll promise to never badmouth them on Slashdot again!
How big? (Score:2)
How big are the buyouts, roughly?
Re: (Score:2)
H1-B salary most likely.
Re: (Score:2)
Forbes has a guess:
[1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/t... [forbes.com]
> Microsoftâ(TM)s standard severance package previously included 12 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of employment, though this could vary depending on tenure and level. When the company laid off 10,000 employees in 2023, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said his firm would offer benefit-eligible employees six months of health care and stock vesting and 60 days of notice in addition to severance. If a 20-year employee whose salar
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2026/04/23/microsoft-issues-first-ever-employee-buyout-heres-how-much-employees-might-receive
Getting ahead of the problem (Score:3)
Dear MS,
You may pay me $100,000 to never work for you, this way you don't have to lay me off.
Thank you.
Re: (Score:2)
I would hope the buy outs are larger than that. Likely the people that qualify for this due to their age and tenure at the company have a yearly salary larger than 100,000k, Unless they have just been a janitor for the last 40 years, unlikely though since that kind of job is usually subcontracted out these days.
Re: (Score:2)
I would assume some kind of payout schedule based on tenure. Maybe something like a year of pay for every decade worked. Or one I experienced when a company I worked for was bought out and they started layoffs. 2 weeks of pay for every year worked. There were some people that worked there over 30 years. They walked away with a lump sum check bigger than their yearly salary.
Re: (Score:2)
> I would hope the buy outs are larger than that. Likely the people that qualify for this due to their age and tenure at the company have a yearly salary larger than 100,000k, Unless they have just been a janitor for the last 40 years, unlikely though since that kind of job is usually subcontracted out these days.
Yeah, I'd expect that most of the eligible people have TCO in the mid-six figures to low seven figures, with salaries $250-500k, annual bonus $50-100kk+ and equity another $250-500k. Since offers need to be at least six months' pay (preferably more) to really make sense for someone who wasn't already about to leave anyway, the number has to be quite a bit higher than $100k.
New Definition of Retirement Age. (Score:5, Funny)
> "available to U.S. workers at the senior director level and below whose years of employment and age add up to 70 or higher."
(Microsoft HR) "Hello. The Boomer Club representing the senior executive bone-us profit margins recently took notice to the fact you've been here 20 years. Since you were 31 years old in fact. Time to retire."
(Senior Director) "Wait, but I'm not ready to retire! And I'm not eligible for retirement benefits even from your own 401k match until 203.."
(Microsoft HR) "Close enough. Time to Alt-Del your active employment status. Don't let the door Ctrl you on the way out."
Re:New Definition of Retirement Age. (Score:5, Informative)
[tik tik tik] - "Hi, I'm Clippy. It looks like you're being sacked. Would you like help transferring your 401k to a personal IRA? I can notify security to give you up to an hours delay before they escort you off the premises!"
Re: (Score:2)
Clippy's got it's [1]own problems [pcworld.com].
[1] https://www.pcworld.com/article/468667/ribbon_hero_2.html#:~:text=His%20mother%20is%20disappointed
I hope it doesn't suck (Score:3)
Google has offered a couple of rounds of voluntary separation plans (though they didn't age-gate them), but the offers weren't very good. They were great if someone happened to already be in the process of leaving, or just about to retire, but otherwise not so much.
In 2025, the offer was (from memory) 12 weeks of pay plus two weeks per year with the company. I had 14 years, so that would have been 40 weeks for me... which sounds pretty good until you realize that the package was salary only. At big tech companies salary is only about 40% of compensation, 20% is annual bonus and the other 40% is equity (these are approximations; details vary from person to person, but it's roughly in this ballpark). So, effectively, it wasn't 40 weeks of pay, it was 16 weeks. Basically, the offer should be read as 4.8 weeks plus 0.8 weeks per year of tenure. Not nothing, but not nearly enough to motivate me to give up a job until I had another one lined up.
And, of course, they set the offer acceptance timeline too short for people to hear the announcement, find another job, then accept the package. Finding someone to interview you for a job is easy -- I get several recruiters pings every week. But finding a good fit, going through the multiple rounds of interviews and negotiating an offer takes a while.
For someone with less seniority, the structure was even worse. And I hear the 2026 offer was weaker yet; same two weeks per year, but with a smaller base (6 weeks instead of 12, IIRC?).
Anyway, for the sake of the microsofties who are eligible, I hope they get a better offer than I did.
(I ended up leaving Google anyway, so in hindsight I should have taken the money. I landed the new gig in July, and I'd have separated and gotten the payout in May. But at my stage of life I'm not interested in taking risks, so there was no way I was jumping without another job lined up.)
Don't fall for it! (Score:2)
Back in the late '90's, Bill Gates promised to pay me $1000 if I forwarded all the emails he sent to my inbox for his email tracing program.
I've never seen a penny!
Re: (Score:3)
Laws. This kind of specific application has very big legal limitations in different countries, and different tax implications both for the company and the person buying out their employment. I've seen a company do this globally before. It took them YEARS. Germany especially resulted in a 2 year hold up due to works council negotiations.
Re: (Score:3)
Works councils in Germany have no say in voluntary termination agreements (AufhebungsvertrÃge). The works council has to be given a chance to comment on involuntary terminations (which makes a difference if the terminated person sues) and it negotiates company-wide agreements (Betriebsvereinbarungen).
Re: (Score:2)
They absolutely have a say in literally everything that does not apply to all employees equally. They do not have a say if you offer unified global voluntary termination to the entire workforce, this is not what anyone is talking about doing. MS is getting rid of aging (reads: expensive) staff.
Re: (Score:2)
Please point me to the paragraphs that gives the works council this right.
The case you mentioned might be due to paragraph 112 BetrVG. That paragraph says that the employer and the works council have to agree on a plan (Sozialplan) for what happens with the employees affected by significant restructuring. The works council will try to prevent unfairness towards those that leave the company. Those that stay are not in focus as long as the company can continue to function without those that leave.