Microsoft pays 60,000 to leave – Kristian Høegh Mysen

On Monday, around 60,000 Microsoft employees received an offer: take a severance package and leave by the new year. More than a quarter of the company.

This is the third round this year. In April, employees were offered early retirement. In July, 4,800 were laid off. For the first time in ten years, Microsoft has fewer employees than the year before, while revenue continues to grow.

At the same time, the company spent more than $50 billion on data centres and AI equipment in the last quarter alone. The year before, the figure was $35 billion.

AI is not mentioned once in the message to employees. It does not need to be. The numbers speak for themselves: payroll costs out, computing power in. Those who remain work with AI tools that, according to Microsoft itself, help sales teams close 20 per cent more deals and cut the time spent on some processes by as much as three quarters.

And Microsoft is not alone. Last year, Goldman Sachs found no link between AI and employment. Now they write that the industries which have adopted the most AI have weaker job growth and higher unemployment than normal. The effect is spreading beyond the technology sector, and the trend may not slow any time soon; most businesses are still only at the starting line when it comes to realising gains from AI.

The numbers are still small, and no newspaper is reporting mass layoffs. That is exactly why we should pay attention: the change is happening quietly. A severance package here, a position left unfilled there, a department that suddenly manages with fewer people. No press release says AI took your job. But suddenly we find ourselves in a different world from the one we thought we lived in.

We have spent years arguing about whether AI actually delivers results. Microsoft has answered with its wallet. What no one has answered is what happens to those who are no longer needed. The changes are happening, whether you welcome them or not, and they seem to be coming faster and faster.

Who has a plan for those who get the offer next time?

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