Oracle sacrifices thousands of jobs in its bet on artificial intelligence

Oracle sacrifices thousands of jobs in its bet on artificial intelligence

 CNBC, citing two sources familiar with the matter, reported that cloud computing giant Oracle has laid off thousands of employees, a move reflecting the profound shifts occurring in the technology sector.

Later, Oracle officially announced that it would terminate the contracts of 491 employees working remotely in Washington state or at its Seattle offices, effective June 1. This announcement came via a formal notice filed under the U.S. WARN Act, which requires companies with 100 or more employees to provide 60 days' written notice before mass layoffs or facility closures. The law aims to give employees and their families time to prepare for new employment.

The company explained that these layoffs are part of a broader plan that includes "reducing staff and terminating other contracts," while confirming that its Seattle offices will remain open. Oracle employed approximately 162,000 full-time employees worldwide as of May 2025.

Artificial Intelligence Drives the Downsizing Decision

This move is not isolated from the broader context of Oracle's current situation; the company is investing heavily in artificial intelligence infrastructure in an effort to compete in the cloud computing market against giants like Google and Amazon.

Last March, Oracle revealed that its fiscal 2026 restructuring plan could cost $2.1 billion, with most of the proceeds allocated to severance pay and related expenses. The company declined to comment on the CNBC report, but this did not prevent a wave of questions and concerns among employees, who flooded Reddit, X, and the Blind networking site with posts revealing new details about the scale and scope of the layoffs.

A wave of layoffs is sweeping through Silicon Valley. Oracle's layoffs come amid a broader wave of layoffs affecting major technology companies. According to Layoffs, a platform specializing in tracking layoffs, more than 70 tech companies have laid off approximately 40,480 employees since the beginning of the year, with a rapid shift towards reallocating resources to artificial intelligence projects.

In the same vein, Reuters reported that Meta laid off hundreds of employees across multiple teams last week, as part of a broader plan that Reuters had revealed earlier this month, indicating sweeping layoffs that could affect 20% or more of the company's total workforce.

These figures reflect growing concerns among workers in the technology sector, as artificial intelligence is redrawing the job map at an unprecedented pace, raising fundamental questions about the future of the labor market in a world where digital efficiency intersects with human cost.