Comment by somenameforme
4 hours ago
People often confuse what 'at will' employment means. All 'at will' employment means is that the default is that a worker can quit or be fired at any time without either party having recourse. But this can be overridden by contracts and for basically all white collar and higher paid jobs, it is.
I'm not privy to a standard Microsoft contract so I can't say for 100% certain, but I'd be quite shocked if they don't provide a clause that workers can only be terminated for cause. So they're legally required to buy out contracts if they want to get rid of a substantial number of workers in a short period of time.
Unless something has changed drastically since I worked at MS, they absolutely can do mass layoffs without having to buy out contracts.
Sure they offer severance, industry norm is usually 1-2 weeks of severence per year of employment, but in no way are they contractually limited to only lay people off for cause.
Firing an individual is different, on that front they are careful how its handled to avoid being sued and having to settle. Employment laws also vary by country, I'm mostly familiar with US laws.
Only a MSFT employee can say for sure what their employment contract is these days, but I found an old court case where they used pretty standard “at will” language.
https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/no-breach...
That's very different. That was them rescinding a job offer before a 'real' contract had been signed in something explicitly stating that it was not a contract of employment, and was also fully contingent on them passing a criminal background check - which the applicant failed. So they're losing in both at will, and by the terms of the contract. They still got sued, because people gonna people, but it's not related to a normal Microsoft employment contract.