Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) began eliminating thousands of jobs Tuesday in what analysts believe could be the largest workforce reduction in the company’s history, as the software giant drains its balance sheet to fund an aggressive bet on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Employees across the US, India, Canada, Mexico, and other countries received termination emails from “Oracle Leadership” as early as 6 a.m. local time, with no advance notice from human resources or direct managers.
The email told workers their roles had been eliminated “as part of a broader organizational change” and that the day they received it was their last. System access was cut almost immediately. An Oracle spokesperson declined to comment.
Investment bank TD Cowen estimates the cuts could reach between 20,000 and 30,000 workers — roughly 18% of Oracle’s global workforce of approximately 162,000.
The layoffs follow directly from Oracle’s push into AI infrastructure. Bloomberg reported on March 5 that cuts in the thousands were being planned across multiple divisions, some specifically targeting roles the company expects AI to make redundant. Tuesday’s wave executed that plan.
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The company committed to spending $50 billion on capital expenditures in fiscal 2026 on its March earnings call and took on $58 billion in new debt in the past two months, including a $50 billion bond offering in February.
Oracle was also struggling to secure financing for Stargate, a $500 billion AI data center initiative it is pursuing alongside OpenAI and SoftBank.
Read: OpenAI Abandons Own Data Center Plans, Reshuffles Stargate Leadership as Financing Falters
TD Cowen estimates the job cuts will free up $8 to $10 billion in cash flow. In its March 2026 10-Q filing with the SEC, Oracle disclosed a $2.1 billion restructuring plan, with $982 million already recorded in the first nine months of the fiscal year, primarily for employee severance.
Related: CEOs Drop the Euphemisms: AI Is Now Openly Cited as the Reason for Mass Tech Layoffs
Employee posts on Reddit’s r/employeesOfOracle and the professional forum Blind confirmed cuts throughout the day. Teams in Oracle’s Revenue and Health Sciences division and its SaaS and Virtual Operations Services group each reported workforce reductions of at least 30%. NetSuite’s India Development Centre was also affected, with cuts across project management and engineering roles. Canada and Mexico reported terminations before the US wave hit.
Some employees noted their formal last day as April 3, with a one-month garden leave period to follow. Workers with vested stock were told they would retain access through Fidelity. Posts on Blind also alleged that Oracle had recently installed monitoring software on company-issued laptops, with warnings circulating among affected employees not to copy files or code before returning their machines.
The company posted a 95% jump in net income last quarter, reaching $6.13 billion, and its remaining performance obligations — a measure of contracted future revenue — stood at $523 billion, up 433% year over year. Oracle did not address the layoffs on its March 10 earnings call.
Oracle’s stock has shed nearly 30% of its value this year as markets weigh the cost of its AI buildout against the risk that generative AI displaces the enterprise software products that have formed the company’s core business for decades.
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