Oracle layoffs: Employees get 6 am email as fresh job cuts begin

Oracle has begun another round of layoffs, with affected employees receiving an early-morning email informing them that their roles had been eliminated as part of a broader organisational change, according to a report by Business Insider.

The latest cuts began on Monday, with people affected by the layoffs also posting about their job losses on LinkedIn, Reddit and Blind. Business Insider said it spoke to three employees affected by the latest round and reviewed an internal notification sent to workers.

The company has not disclosed how many employees are affected by the latest cuts.LATEST LAYOFFS COME AMID MAJOR AI SPENDING SPREE

The job cuts come at a striking moment for Oracle. The company is aggressively expanding its data-centre infrastructure to meet rising demand for artificial intelligence and cloud services, even as it cuts costs and reshapes its workforce.

Oracle spent $28.5 billion on capital expenditure in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, more than three times the $8.5 billion it spent in the same period a year earlier. The company has maintained its full-year capital expenditure forecast at $90 billion to $95 billion.

At the same time, Oracle’s AI business is showing strong demand. The company said it signed more than $30 billion in additional AI cloud contracts during the quarter, taking its total remaining performance obligations, or revenue backlog, to $664 billion. But the expansion is expensive. Oracle reported negative free cash flow of $5.4 billion in the quarter, while its spending on data centres continues to climb.

The latest round is not Oracle’s first major workforce reduction this year.

Oracle’s global workforce fell by about 21,000 employees, or 13%, during fiscal 2026, which ended on May 31. Its headcount stood at about 141,000 at the end of that period, down from roughly 162,000 a year earlier, according to the company’s annual filing.

The company spent about $1.84 billion on severance payments and other exit costs related to restructuring during fiscal 2026, compared with $374 million the previous year.

Oracle has said part of the workforce reduction was linked to the adoption and deployment of AI across its operations.

The company's restructuring programme has also grown more expensive. It disclosed last week that it was adding about $700 million to its expected restructuring costs, taking the total estimated cost of its fiscal 2026 restructuring plan to roughly $2.8 billion. The plan includes severance, contract termination fees and other exit costs.

Oracle had recorded about $2.1 billion in charges under the plan by August 31. The company said the additional $700 million reflected further actions it expects to take.

The disclosure came just days before the latest layoffs began.ANOTHER ROUND WAS ALREADY EXPECTED

The September cuts were not entirely unexpected.

India Today Digital had reported last month that Oracle was preparing another round of job reductions as it looked to reduce payroll while taking on significant debt to finance its AI infrastructure buildout.

The latest notification confirms that at least some of those planned reductions have now begun.

Affected employees were told their roles had been eliminated as part of a “broader organisational change”, with the notification day also serving as their last working day, according to the email, as per reports.CUTTING COSTS WHILE BETTING BIG ON AI?

The layoffs underline the tension in Oracle’s current strategy. The company is betting heavily on AI-driven cloud demand and is committing tens of billions of dollars to data centres and related infrastructure. Its latest results show that demand is growing: first-quarter revenue rose 30% year-on-year to $19.3 billion, while cloud infrastructure revenue jumped 121% to $7.4 billion.

But that growth is coming alongside a dramatic increase in spending and a broader effort to reduce costs.

For employees, the latest round is another chapter in a year of significant workforce changes at Oracle. For the company, the cuts are part of a much larger restructuring taking place as it tries to fund one of its most aggressive AI infrastructure expansions yet.- EndsPublished By: Deebashree MohantyPublished On: Sep 14, 2026 23:31 IST