Microsoft has offered voluntary redundancies to 60,000 workers – more than a quarter of its global workforce – but Australian workers at the tech giants will not be able to access the scheme.

Microsoft this week launched a “voluntary exit offer” plan, with eligible employees in participating departments offered a payout to leave the organisation.

It comes amid major restructures within Microsoft due to the huge growth in AI and a sharp uptick in spending on data centres.

The tech giant has cut about 20,000 roles in the last 18 months after embarking on a hiring spree in the early days of the COVID pandemic.

The voluntary redundancies will be offered to select Microsoft workers in Canada, India, the United Kingdom and the USA, at level 70 and below. At Microsoft, level 70 includes partner-level technical leaders, directors and senior directors.

The voluntary redundancy scheme will not be offered to the approximately 3,000 Microsoft workers based in Australia.

A future outside the company

The new scheme is about “creating greater flexibility and, where possible, more ways for employees to shape their next chapter”, Microsoft chief people officer Amy Coleman said in a note to the company’s employees this week.

“This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support,” Coleman said.

“It also gives participating organisations another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs.”

The time-limited offer will provide employees who accept it with a payout and career planning resources.

“The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us,” Coleman said.

“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.

The announcement comes just days before Microsoft is due to report its first-quarter financial results.

It will be the first earnings report under the company's new reporting structure, which divides its operations into Agents and Infra, and Devices and Consumer.

The new segments replace the previous divisions of Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud and More Personal Computing.

Wider job cuts

The voluntary exit offer follows a series of workforce reductions at Microsoft.

Earlier this year, the company introduced an early retirement buyout offer for about 8,600 long-serving employees.

In July, Microsoft cut nearly 5,000 jobs, representing about 2 per cent of its global workforce, with its Commercial and Xbox gaming divisions among those in the firing line.

The company said at the time that “AI is changing how work gets done”.

In May last year, Microsoft laid off 6,000 employees, followed by another 9,000 job cuts in July.

Earlier this month Microsoft was banned from accessing a popular visa program in the USA after it was accused of fraud and using the scheme to replace American workers.

US Vice-President JD Vance accused Microsoft of replacing US workers with “foreign servants” through the H-1B visa program, a claim the company has denied.

Despite the workforce reductions, Microsoft has announced significant investment plans in Australia.

Earlier this year, it unveiled a $25 billion investment in Australia by 2029, alongside a commitment to train 3 million people in AI.

The investment will support major infrastructure projects, cybersecurity collaborations and AI workforce training.