Google and Meta have opened voluntary exit programmes for employees in several countries this week, following Microsoft’s larger buyout offer that covers roughly 60,000 workers across four markets, including India.
Alphabet-owned Google has expanded its voluntary buyout programme to staff in Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Switzerland, having previously run such schemes only in select US and UK divisions.
“In 2025, some of our teams introduced a voluntary exit program with severance,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “This past summer, in June, we expanded this program globally in a few countries to support our important work ahead.”
Terms disclosed for Switzerland, where Google employs about 5,000 people and runs a major engineering hub in Zurich, show employees who accepted received one month’s salary for each year of service, capped at 12 months. The programme covered multiple divisions but excluded DeepMind, Google’s AI research unit. Applications in Switzerland closed in mid-July, and employees who took the offer began leaving in August. Google’s global headcount stood at 204,757 as of September 2026, up almost 10,000 in six months, aided by the March 2026 acquisition of cybersecurity firm Wiz.
Meta has proposed a voluntary exit scheme under France’s Rupture Conventionnelle Collective law, with applications closing on 5 November 2026. Up to a third of Meta’s roughly 300 French employees could leave under the plan. Negotiated with trade unions since July, the package offers severance of 2.15 months of salary for every year of service, 10 months of mobility leave at 80% of gross salary, and company-funded retraining or support for starting a business. Meta has not confirmed whether it will extend the scheme beyond France. The company employs about 66,000 people globally.
The three programmes follow Microsoft’s Voluntary Exit Offer (VEO), announced on 26 October 2026 and open to approximately 60,000 eligible employees at level 70 and below across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and India. Microsoft has about 22,000 to 23,000 employees in India, spread across Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Gurugram and Noida, though the company has not disclosed how many of them are eligible. Eligible Indian employees have until 1 December 2026 to decide, with those who accept exiting on 31 December.
