Another massive wave of layoffs at the well-known company: thousands at risk of unemployment

Software giant Oracle has initiated another round of layoffs, adding to previous cuts. According to its annual report, the number of employees dropped from 162,000 to 141,000 within a year. The company spent $1.84 billion on severance, compared to $374 million the previous year. The backdrop: a massive bet on AI, with capital investments of $28.5 billion in the last quarter and a negative free cash flow of $5.4 billion.

Software giant Oracle has launched another extensive wave of layoffs this week, adding to significant cuts already made. According to the company's annual report, its workforce dropped from approximately 162,000 in May 2025 to about 141,000 in May 2026 – a decrease of roughly 21,000 employees, or 13 percent of its personnel. Oracle spent about $1.84 billion on severance and exit costs in the last fiscal year, compared to just $374 million the year before. The cuts were carried out in several waves and affected, among others, employees in engineering, sales, security, customer service, NetSuite, Cerner, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The backdrop to the layoffs is Oracle's massive bet on artificial intelligence. The company is investing enormous sums in building data centers and purchasing advanced computing equipment, in an attempt to compete with Amazon, Microsoft, and Google in cloud services. Oracle has signed significant infrastructure deals with OpenAI and Meta, but the expansion is weighing on cash flow. In the last quarter, capital investments totaled approximately $28.5 billion, and for fiscal year 2027 it expects capital expenditures of between $90 and $95 billion. Meanwhile, the company reported a negative free cash flow of $5.4 billion and is working to raise about $40 billion through debt and equity. At the end of the week, Oracle increased the expected cost of its restructuring plan by about $700 million, to about $2.8 billion. The cuts come precisely during a period of business growth: Oracle reported revenue of about $19.3 billion in the last quarter, an increase of about 30 percent. This means the layoffs are not the result of a collapse in operations, but rather a shift in priorities – less spending on personnel in some activities, and much more money for data centers, chips, and AI infrastructure.