Oracle Layoffs: Why Employees Fear Another Round of Job Cuts on September 1

Rather than focusing on their workload, Oracle employees have been keeping an eye on the calendar, which is uncommon for a tech business enjoying record cloud income. Managers have been requested by Oracle to provide names of employees whose positions could be terminated as the company prepares for a new round of layoffs.

Reducing payroll by the first day of Oracle's fiscal second quarter (September 1) is the internal aim. Oracle has chosen not to comment or publicly confirm any of this; however, media reports indicate that certain teams have seen decreases of double digits.

Déjà Vu Moment for Oracle’s Employees

Nearly six in the morning on March 31, an email from an account branded "Oracle Leadership" woke up thousands of Oracle employees in the United States, India, Canada, and Mexico. The first line of the message stated that it was delivering bad news regarding their position. In addition, it made it clear that the day email message landed was also their last working day and that the position had been removed as part of a larger restructure after the company reviewed business needs.

The message expressed gratitude for their contributions and informed them that severance will be processed once they had completed the termination documentation that had been emailed to their Oracle email address through DocuSign. Neither a manager nor an HR representative called. The very next morning, system access was disabled. How this round is predicted has been influenced by that experience. Members of the "probable layoff" mega thread that has been active on the r/employeesOfOracle subreddit since August have recounted how they would check their email at 6 am on payday Mondays to make sure they were still employed.

The subreddit has about 52,000 visitors. Nothing had arrived at Oracle's India Development Center at that hour, according to one media post. The logic behind this is that, usually, if the US wave hits first, then India follows a day later, which is pretty much how March worked out.

Oracle on a Spree of Reducing Headcounts

The business lost over 21,000 employees, or about 13% of its workforce, in the fiscal year that concluded on May 31. This reduces the overall workforce from over 162,000 to around 141,000, with 49,000 of those workers located in the United States. The annual restructuring cost increased by 391% to $1.8 billion from $374 million in the previous year. The existing budget does not leave much space for this. In its most recent 10-K filing (June 22), Oracle set a $2.1 billion ceiling on the overall anticipated expenditures of its fiscal 2026 restructuring plan.

There is around $300 million of wiggle room after $1.8 billion has been documented. Any layoffs according to Business Insider's estimates would have to be contained within that remaining budget or force Oracle to announce a second round of restructuring over the next three years. There is no nuance to the financial reasoning. A significant increase from $21.2 billion in fiscal 2025, Oracle's capital expenditures reached $55.7 billion in fiscal 2026.

Spending has increased due to the creation of data centres for artificial intelligence customers, like OpenAI. Despite raising $43 billion in debt and $5 billion in equity, the firm spent $23.7 billion more on operations than it brought in. On top of that, the firm is targeting an additional $40 billion in funding this year. Just interest costs increased from $3.6 billion to $4.6 billion.