Oracle layoffs enter final phase as thousands of employees prepare to exit

Oracle's mass layoffs, first announced in late March and reported to affect up to 30,000 employees globally, including around 12,000 in India, are entering their final phase, with many affected workers expected to complete their exits by mid-June.

The workforce reduction is among the largest in the company's history and comes despite Oracle reporting strong growth in its cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) businesses. Industry observers view the restructuring as part of the company's efforts to redirect resources towards AI infrastructure, cloud services and large-scale data centre investments.

India has emerged as a key focus of the layoffs because of Oracle's sizeable presence in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Noida and Gurugram. While the company has not released an official country-wise breakdown, reports suggest India accounted for a significant share of the global job cuts announced earlier this year.

Many employees affected by the restructuring were informed of their departures in March and April, with final separation dates scheduled between 1 June and 15 June. The latest reports therefore relate largely to the completion of Oracle's earlier restructuring exercise rather than a newly announced round of layoffs.

Employees impacted by the cuts have reportedly been offered severance packages linked to their years of service. According to media reports, workers receive four weeks of base salary for their first year of employment and an additional week for each subsequent year, subject to a cap. Acceptance of the severance package is understood to require employees to sign agreements waiving future claims against the company.

For many workers, however, the bigger concern has been stock-based compensation. Employees whose restricted stock units (RSUs) had not vested before their exit dates reportedly lost those benefits, resulting in significant financial losses in some cases.

One of the divisions most affected by the restructuring is Oracle Health, the healthcare technology business created following Oracle's acquisition of Cerner. Reports suggest thousands of positions have been eliminated from the unit, which serves hospitals, healthcare providers and government-linked health projects.

The layoffs come as Oracle continues to invest heavily in AI-related infrastructure. The company recently reported quarterly revenue of about $17.2 billion, with cloud services accounting for more than half of total sales. AI-related businesses have emerged as one of Oracle's fastest-growing segments, prompting increased spending on data centres and cloud capacity.

Oracle is also involved in the Stargate AI initiative alongside OpenAI and SoftBank, underscoring its ambitions to play a larger role in the rapidly expanding AI ecosystem.

For affected employees, the coming days are expected to be crucial as they review severance agreements, healthcare benefits and compensation arrangements before their departures are finalised.

With media inputs