The Rise of Quiet Restructuring in Big Tech
The new face of downsizing: Faster, quieter, and AI-driven
The way employees are being laid off is becoming faster and quieter than ever. Economists estimate that up to onethird of resignations in Silicon Valley this year are not voluntary, but negotiated with compensation.
Google is confirming it's offering workers a voluntary buyout program.
Companies like Google and Amazon are paying extra weeks of salary to discreetly get rid of misaligned employees.
Google is now offering buyouts to employees across several divisions, but including its core search and advertising units. Seems to be just the latest sign that tech is reshaping its workforce around AI.
Not counted as layoffs — a distortion of labor data
These departures are not counted as official layoffs, which distorts labor data and conceals the true scale of restructuring.
Quiet restructuring's emphasis on quiet. This is the new norm in big tech. It's part cost discipline, part AI era reality.
How buyouts became big tech’s go-to tool
So, how buyouts became big tech's go-to tool for quiet downsizing? Over the past 3 years, tech companies have experimented with nearly every possible method to reduce headcount. Among the most popular are sudden mass layoffs, prolonged hiring freezes, and performance improvement plans designed to force resignations.
In 2025, a new balance has started to emerge. Instead of noisy layoffs that make headlines, companies are turning to voluntary exit packages that offer discretion in exchange for cost certainty. Google, owned by Alphabet, is now the emblem of this transition.
Inside Google’s Voluntary Exit Strategy
Shifting from mass layoffs to buyout programs
CNBC has learned that Google is offering buyouts to employees across several of its divisions, including the unit that houses its search, ad, and commerce businesses. After eliminating 12,000 positions in 2023, about 6% of its global workforce, Google pivoted toward what it calls a voluntary exit program. This program offers generous severance packages to employees deemed misaligned with the company's new AI focused roadmap.
Competitors like Microsoft, Amazon, SAP, and Verizon have adopted similar schemes. Together, these offers are quietly reshaping the tech employment landscape while preserving an image of stability for shareholders and regulators.
Massive numbers, masked impact
The scale of the cuts remains massive. By midMay 2025, at least 61,000 jobs had been eliminated by 130 tech companies, already surpassing the annual total of 2020 and approaching that of 2024. Estimates put the exact figure at 62,800 positions across 141 companies, highlighting the lack of visibility in voluntary exits, which are rarely disclosed publicly.
From one-day layoffs to euphemisms and staggered exits
However, what has changed is not so much the volume of layoffs, but the method. At the start of 2023, most reductions came in the form of massive one-day cuts. Today, they are spread over several months and disguised with euphemisms such as talent mobility or workforce realignment. A Google executive wrote to employees, "If you don't feel aligned, this is your exit path." So, in other words, stay if you're on board with the strategy or leave quietly if you're not.
The Cost, Risk, and Future of Voluntary Buyouts
Packages with perks — and downsides
According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2023, there was a rate of 43.6 employees per thousand placed on performance improvement plans, many of whom ended up resigning before being formally terminated. Voluntary severance takes that logic a step further. It allows for staff cuts with no paperwork, no lawsuits, and a clearly defined exit budget.
Alphabet launched its first large-scale voluntary exit program in January 2025, composed of around 25,000 employees responsible for developing the company's operating systems. Eligible US workers were offered at least 14 weeks of base pay, plus one addition week for each year of service along with accelerated stock vesting and 6 months of healthcare coverage.
In April, Google also laid off hundreds of employees from the same group, indicating that the program did not eliminate enough costs. The interesting part of Google's latest buyouts is that it's reaching into its search and ad teams. That is still its core profit engine, suggesting that even those units are being re-evaluated.
It’s not just Google — others follow suit
Nevertheless, the company presented it as a support measure for those not fully aligned with the company's strategy. a phrase repeated in internal memos obtained by the Verge. By June 2025, the offer had been extended to the knowledge and information group consisting of approximately 20,000 employees as well as core engineering and research teams.
Google's logic is simple. Those who accept a buyout are statistically less productive under the new AIcentric approach. Moreover, the cost of these severance packages is lower than keeping misaligned employees on payroll for months or even years. But this kind of filtering also happens at other companies.
Nissan has started offering buyouts to US workers and suspended merit-based global payraises.
Microsoft offers 16 weeks of salary to low-erforming employees who voluntarily resign, avoiding the need for a formal termination.
Amazon pioneered this model with packages of 3 month salary, especially for employees resisting return to office mandates. Google has replicated both elements, an attractive payout and pressure to be in the office at least 3 days a week or take the offer.
Expensive but less risky
But voluntary exits are not cheap. Alphabet has not disclosed the total cost of the program. However, if 10% of Alphabet's employees accepted it, the estimated cash severance expense would exceed $550 million, assuming an average payout of $220,000 per employee.
Software firm SAP, for its part, allocated €2 billion to restructure or sever 8,000 ROS during 2024 and 2025, around 250,000 per affected employee.
By comparison, Verizon recorded a $1.9 billion charge in 2024 to fund the voluntary exit of 4,800 employees, averaging nearly $396,000 per person.
Verizon says more than 10,000 employees have been approved to receive the company's voluntary buyout offer. That's about 7% of the company's workforce.
Avoiding lawsuits and keeping investors happy
Still, these sums may prove more cost effective than the indirect costs of a forced dismissal. Such costs include wrongful termination, lawsuits, demoralization among remaining staff, and reputational damage. In the US, severance payouts from legal disputes range from $40,000 to $100,000, while jury trials can push that figure above $1 million. Voluntary exits usually include agreements that prevent future litigation.
Although official figures are scarce, thousands of workers are believed to have accepted such offers in 2025. Google, for instance, applied the program to about 45,000 people in total. The rise in these exits is distorting official indicators. The US Department of Labor counts a voluntary buyout as a resignation, not a layoff, which can mask the true magnitude of restructuring. Economists estimate that up to 1/3 of voluntary resignations in Silicon Valley in 2025 are driven by buyout offers, a share three times higher than in 2019 before the pandemic.
What’s next: AI adoption and talent wars
Google offering buyouts, what exactly does that mean? And why have we seen that company offer these buyout options in waves since 2020? three. So, a couple years ago.
For experienced workers, the package can function as a bridge. An engineer with 7 years at Google would receive about 21 weeks of base pay. Nearly $90,000 plus stock, enough to fund 6 months of job searching. But younger employees with little tenure receive lower amounts and face a saturated market. Software developer job postings have dropped 33% in the past 5 years.
Investors reward the narrative of disciplined optimization. Alphabet's stock rose 2.3 % on the day Bloomberg confirmed layoffs in the Google Cloud division despite them being small and localized. Morgan Stanley analysts estimate that a 1% reduction in Google's workforce improves the annual operating margin by 22 basis points. Voluntary exits being optional help keep those costs under control. Tech leaders argue that these severance packages free up budget to hire AI talent.
There's some of the world's most in demand tech jobs from fighting scams and fraud to designing chat bots. They're all working with one technology, AI.
Alphabet plans to redirect $500 million in payroll savings toward custom AI accelerators. Microsoft, for its part, pays an average of $350,000 per year to AI specialized engineers, 40% more than to standard developers. Voluntary exits make that talent swap possible, but they are not risk-f free.
Some high-erforming employees take the offers to launch startups, taking strategic knowledge with them. Accelerated Stockvesting increases stock-based compensation expenses, which concerns shareholders. Some workers may slow down performance in hopes of receiving the next offer. California lawmakers are proposing more transparency requirements for these programs, which could reduce their reputational benefits.
The future workforce: Uncertain but AI-driven
With AI quickly becoming part of everyday life, lawmakers say it's time to educate and protect the public.
This is appropriate role of government. Uh we need to prepare the next generation for uh this artificial intelligence. driven economy.
In addition, many workers who accept these exits are not eligible for public reskilling or unemployment programs as they are technically counted as resignations. Voluntary severance has gone from a one-off tactic to the default strategy for headcount reduction in tech.
Google's program is a clear example. It offers 14 weeks of base pay, presents a strategic message, and is described as voluntary. Collectively, these programs are redefining thousands of career paths in 2025.
Even if many of those moves do not appear in official layoff figures, the tech job market now depends on two key factors:
The speed of AI adoption and the availability of qualified talent.
If AI continues to automate mid-level functions, companies will make use of agile mechanisms to reconfigure their workforces. But if technical talent becomes scarce, incentives may shift and retention packages could replace buyout offers.
Source: Economy Media. (2025, June 20). How buyouts became the new normal in tech layoffs [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSbiV5gM4mc