Tech Explained: Here’s a simplified explanation of the latest technology update around Tech Explained: Oracle’s AI pivot cuts deep, lays off 20% of its India workforce in Simple Termsand what it means for users..
“The company is essentially cutting roles on the tech side, since they are not seeing enough returns on their AI-led investments. In India, they have cut around 10,000 people off the payroll,” a source said about Oracle’s developments.
The cuts have also impacted Oracle Financial Software Services (OFSS), with about 1,000 jobs being cut in that unit or about 10% of its headcount, a second source with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Also Read: Oracle prepares for layoffs, sets aside $2.1 billion for restructuring
OFSS is publicly listed in India. The company did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
The cuts amount to roughly 20% of the Indian workforce, which is 50,000 strong. Globally, its workforce stood at 162,000 as of May 2025. The Texas-based company laid off 10% of its workforce last year in September.
The job cuts have been across the board, from ‘Individual Contributor 2 or IC2’, one of the most junior employee rungs at Oracle, to M6, which is a high-level software engineering manager role. Even some freshers who just joined the company 8 months ago were not spared.
The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure unit and Cerner Healthcare have been impacted in both India and the United States. Oracle acquired Cerner Healthcare for $28 billion in 2022, and that acquisition has since struggled.
While media reports suggest another round of layoffs is coming within a month, cuts in the EMEA region are coming as early as the next week, a source with knowledge of the matter said, as a result of more regulations about job cuts in those markets.
Oracle employees are concerned about the implications of the cuts. “There is the general feeling that this is not the last cut. There are always more cuts that can follow,” an Oracle employee who retained his job in the India Development Centre, or IDC as it is known in Oracle parlance.
Employees who have retained their jobs are also facing the prospect of significantly higher workloads as the company pushes them to do more with less.
“My manager called and basically said I should be glad to keep my job and I should work harder. That the job cuts were not a reason to not meet our deliverables. Our entire sister team got let go in the US so I am not even sure how meeting those deliverables will be possible,” says the Oracle employee.
As per a notice filed under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, the company has said it will lay off 491 employees working remotely in Washington state and at its Seattle offices, effective June 1.
According to Oracle, the layoffs are a part of a “reduction in force and other terminations,” but its Seattle locations will stay operational.
Additionally, Oracle employees stand to lose their Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), a form of equity compensation given to employees, if their vesting dates are after the layoff date, an Oracle employee told ET, even if the stocks were due to vest in the same week.
Oracle RSUs typically vest on the 5th of the month, they added.
Oracle declined to comment on ET’s queries regarding the number of employees impacted, the severance packages and details on the impacted departments/roles.
On Tuesday, several employees flooded social media and microblogging sites like Reddit, LinkedIn, and X (formerly Twitter) about Oracle laying off nearly 30,000 employees globally, with just an email from HR at 6 am IST (and 3 am PT), informing them of their termination.
Global brokerage TD Cowen had pointed out the job cuts in its analysis note in January, citing the company’s financing challenges for its data centre expansion, requiring approximately $156 billion in capital expenditure to procure nearly 3 million graphic processing units (GPUs) and related IT gear.
“Amidst this capital requirement, our channel checks indicate that Oracle is now requiring 40% upfront customer deposits as it looks to mitigate the incremental capex requirement for incremental revenue (RPO) growth,” the analysts noted.
In addition, the brokerage noted that laying off 20,000-30,000 people from the company could free up $8-$10 billion in incremental free cash flow.
The restructuring exercise follows similar moves this year from Meta, Amazon, and Atlassian, among others, as companies focus on their AI-related developments. According to Layoffs.fyi, an independent tracker for tech companies’ layoffs, more than 70 tech companies have cut around 40,480 jobs so far this year.