Oracle has cut anywhere between 20,000 to 30,000 jobs, or 18% of its workforce, and the emails to affected employees are sprinkled throughout X and LinkedIn. The roundup of coverage is here.
The company has a heavy debt load and negative cash flow due to its AI infrastructure buildout. Oracle raised $50 billion in debt and equity for its data center buildout earlier this year.
In a nutshell, Oracle is clearly choosing GPUs over people. It remains to be seen whether AI has enabled Oracle to simply be more efficient or the company needs to cut costs anyway it can. Free cash flow on a trailing 12-month basis is horrid.
Another argument for Oracle layoffs is that the company is simply rightsizing after the Cerner acquisition. In 2019, which I use as a primary benchmark due to the COVID hiring spree, Oracle had 136,000 employees. At end of fiscal 2025, the company had 162,000.