Microsoft Offers Voluntary Exit to Up to 60,000 Staff, Including Xbox Teams

Microsoft has offered voluntary exits to as many as 60,000 employees, with Xbox staff among the eligible population, according to a report by The Verge. The offer spans employees in the US, UK, Canada, and India at job level 70 and below.

Chief People Officer Amy Coleman announced the programme, called the Voluntary Exit Offer (VEO), in a memo to staff. The offer is time-limited and open to what Coleman described as "eligible staff in participating teams." Sources familiar with the situation told The Verge that numerous teams qualify, including AI experiences, Copilot, CoreAI, Windows + Devices, Xbox, finance, and human resources.

Three areas of the company participate only partially: Microsoft's cloud + AI organisation, the MicrosoftAI teams, and corporate, external, and legal affairs.

What did the memo actually say?

Coleman framed the VEO as a first for the company and signalled that Microsoft intends to iterate on it. "The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us," Coleman wrote. "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."

She added: "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."

The Voluntary Exit Offer builds on an earlier mechanism. Coleman said it "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," and that it builds on the Voluntary Retirement Program run earlier this year.

That earlier retirement offer was considerably narrower in scope. It reached roughly 9,000 US employees whose combined age and years of service totalled at least 70 — a standard formula used in corporate retirement packages.

What does this mean for Xbox and gaming teams?

The VEO arrives after two rounds of layoffs in July and September, which fell mostly across Xbox and Microsoft's commercial sales organisation. Sources cited by The Verge indicate that further layoffs are also planned, meaning the voluntary offer may precede additional involuntary cuts rather than replace them.

For Xbox teams specifically, the programme places a formal exit mechanism in front of staff at level 70 and below, a band that covers a substantial share of engineering, production, and support roles in gaming divisions. The partial participation of the cloud + AI organisation — the division housing Xbox infrastructure — adds a layer of ambiguity about which gaming-adjacent teams can actually take the offer.

The timing matters for planning. A voluntary offer lets Microsoft reduce headcount without severance-driven public layoffs, while the time-limited window pressures eligible staff to decide quickly against the backdrop of reported further cuts.

What happens next?

The key signal to watch is whether Microsoft discloses uptake figures when the VEO window closes, and whether the reportedly planned further layoffs proceed once the voluntary round concludes.