Google Expands Voluntary Exit Program with Severance to Five Countries

Google has expanded its voluntary exit program to some employees in Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Switzerland, the company confirmed to Reuters. The offers began in June 2026 and carry severance packages. Alphabet is seeking to contain costs while spending heavily on artificial intelligence.

The latest offers follow voluntary exit programs run since last year in some divisions in the US and UK. In Switzerland, the package reportedly offers one month’s salary for every year of service, capped at 12 months. Employees who accepted began leaving in August.

Google has not said how many have accepted, though at least four employees from one team of about 50 took the offer, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Google Cloud and the AI unit DeepMind were excluded from earlier buyout offers and DeepMind is outside the Swiss offer. Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi has repeatedly named AI and cloud computing as hiring priorities. In at least one division, Google followed voluntary offers with layoffs.

The move comes as Microsoft announced a voluntary buyout on October 26 that Reuters says is open to about 60,000 employees.

“In 2025, some of our teams introduced a voluntary exit program with severance,” a Google spokesperson said.