{"id":667125,"date":"2026-10-27T20:04:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T20:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/667125\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T20:04:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T20:04:29","slug":"microsoft-puts-60000-jobs-at-risk-worldwide-as-tech-giant-focuses-on-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/667125\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft puts 60,000 jobs at risk worldwide as tech giant focuses on AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

By GETHIN HICKS, REPORTER<\/a> <\/p>\n

Published: 19:30 EDT, 26 October 2026 | Updated: 19:30 EDT, 26 October 2026 <\/p>\n

Microsoft<\/a> is offering voluntary redundancy to more than a quarter of its global workforce as it pours money into artificial intelligence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Its 6,000-strong UK staff will be among those in line for a ‘buyout’ package.<\/p>\n

Staff in the US, Canada<\/a> and India<\/a> will also be eligible, with 60,000 jobs at risk from a global workforce of 223,000.<\/p>\n

Those at vice-president level and below are affected, while some groups of employees, including some working on data centres, sales and marketing, are excluded. Amy Coleman, the company’s HR head, said in a staff memo: ‘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.’<\/p>\n

It is the second voluntary buyout that Microsoft has offered employees this year. In April, the company reportedly offered around 7 per cent of its US work force the option to retire early. Around 30 per cent of those eligible took the voluntary retirement plan, according to CNBC.<\/p>\n

The company is expected to report its quarterly earnings this week.<\/p>\n

As major tech giants continue to spend heavily on AI-related investments, concerns persist about the impact of the technology on jobs.<\/p>\n

\"Microsoft <\/p>\n

Microsoft is offering voluntary redundancy to more than a quarter of its global workforce as it pours money into artificial intelligence<\/p>\n

Netflix is set to reportedly cut around 6 per cent of its workforce, or 1,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

Auction site eBay laid off 1,000 employees this month, adding to a previous round earlier this year which affected some 800 jobs.<\/p>\n

In May, Facebook owner Meta laid off around 10 per cent of its global workforce, impacting about 8,000 of its employees.<\/p>\n

Uber said in September that it would lay off around 10 per cent of its staff, affecting an estimated 3,000 employees. And Amazon announced 16,000 global job cuts in January.<\/p>\n

Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta are collectively on track to pour roughly \u00a3524billion into AI data centres, chips and computing infrastructure this year alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By GETHIN HICKS, REPORTER Published: 19:30 EDT, 26 October 2026 | Updated: 19:30 EDT, 26 October 2026 Microsoft…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,289,539,61,2568,60,1226,1071,1868,43,80],"class_list":["post-667125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-canada","tag-dailymail","tag-ie","tag-india","tag-ireland","tag-meta","tag-microsoft","tag-netflix","tag-news","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}