Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees, more than a quarter of its workforce, on terms similar to severance

Microsoft offered voluntary buyouts on Monday to about 60,000 employees, over 25% of its workforce, according to Ashley Stewart at Business Insider, which obtained the memo from Chief People Officer Amy Coleman. The offer covers employees at level 70 and below in the UK, the US, Canada, and India, but only on participating teams, which leaves out sales and some engineering and corporate groups. Terms will mirror Microsoft’s standard severance, which in this year’s US layoffs paid at least 60 days of base pay and, for most people, up to 39 weeks depending on level and tenure, and employees must decide by early December and leave by year’s end. The offer follows a retirement buyout earlier this year that about a third of the roughly 9,000 eligible employees accepted.