Google confirmed this week it has been offering voluntary exit packages since June to selected employees in Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Switzerland, widening a programme that already ran in some divisions in the United States and Britain.
The company disclosed the expansion to Reuters. The agency said it could not establish how many employees have accepted the latest offers.
A Google spokesperson said:
“In 2025, some of our teams introduced a voluntary exit program with severance. This past summer, in June, we expanded this program globally in a few countries to support our important work ahead.”
Three people familiar with the Swiss rollout told Reuters that employees who accepted received one month’s salary for every year of service, capped at 12 months. The programme there covered about 5,000 people in Zurich, its major engineering hub.
Google announced the packages in mid-June and informed applicants of the outcome by mid-July. Employees began leaving in August.
One of my sources said at least four employees in a team of about 50 had taken the offer.
It may sound new to you, but in January 2025 Google introduced a voluntary exit program for People Operations and Cloud staff with 14 weeks’ base and an additional week per year of service, and later followed those offers in its Android and Pixel group with direct cuts.
Google executives have pitched the scheme as an option for employees who no longer feel aligned with the company’s pace or direction.
Why Europe, why now?
Google Cloud and the AI unit DeepMind have been kept out of earlier buyout rounds, and the latest expansion appears to follow the same pattern. Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi has repeatedly named AI and cloud computing as key hiring priorities.
That selectivity matters. Alphabet’s capital spending hit $51.4 billion for the third quarter, above the cash generated by operations, as hiring and pay for AI talent rose.
Voluntary packages solve two problems at once, as in countries like France, Germany and Switzerland, forced reductions trigger consultation, notice and severance rules that can stretch for months.
A voluntary exit, capped at a year, is cheaper and faster for companies. It also keeps the company out of U.S. WARN filings and the headlines that come with a numbered layoff and sometimes become problematic for the employer.
Headcount in the tech world can still rise overall, because AI and cloud hiring continues, while other teams quietly shrink.
Microsoft, Oracle and Meta copy the script
Microsoft opened a voluntary exit offer on Monday to about 60,000 employees in the U.S., Canada, India and the United Kingdom, extending a buyout approach the company first tried in April.
The pool equals roughly 27% of Microsoft’s 223,000 employees.
Chief People Officer Amy Coleman announced it in a 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,” Coleman wrote. The memo added, “This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support,”.
The offer is for staff at level 70 and below in participating teams at Microsoft.
Eligible workers have until December 1, 2026, to decide, and those who accept will leave on Dec. 31, 2026.
Oracle moved the other way, with outright cuts. The company cut over 3,000 roles and may reduce thousands more as AI tools improve efficiency.
Its workforce fell from about 162,000 employees in 2025 to roughly 141,000 by May 2026, a reduction of around 21,000 people.
Reports published in September said Oracle is preparing to eliminate around 2,000 to 3,000 positions in India, while a research note from TD Cowen said the company is weighing deep cost cuts including potential layoffs of 20,000 to 30,000 employees to fund AI data centres.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta cut differently, though.
Meta confirmed roughly 600 AI job cuts to AP in October 2025. The company is cutting approximately 600 jobs from the company’s artificial intelligence unit.
The affected teams included FAIR, AI product, and infrastructure. The cuts were communicated in a memo from Alexandr Wang, Meta’s chief AI officer.
Taken together, independent tracker Layoffs.fyi counted 112,732 employees losing their jobs across 218 companies during 2025, a figure also cited as 112,732 tech employees losing their jobs across 218 companies.
Other counts that include broader corporate roles push the total higher, well past 100,000 before the current buyout waves close.
What it means if you got the email
If you are in one of the five Google countries, your deadline already passed in July for this round, but the company said it introduced the programme in a few countries, which leaves room for more.
However, the pattern is that teams close to AI model building and cloud sales are hiring; teams further from that core are being asked to consider an exit.
News Source: FreePressJournal.in/tech/
