Oracle has started laying off over 20,000 employees worldwide, with reports suggesting the total number could reach close to 30,000. The layoffs began in late March 2026 and have affected employees across key regions like the United States, India, and parts of Latin America. Importantly, the move is not due to weak business performance. Instead, Oracle is cutting a significant portion of its around 160,000 workforce as it shifts more resources toward AI and cloud infrastructure.
The scale of the layoffs makes this one of the largest restructuring exercises in Oracle’s history, with estimates indicating that around 15-18% of its global workforce could be impacted. India, one of the company’s biggest talent hubs, appears to be among the hardest hit, with reports suggesting that 10,000 to 12,000 employees in the country alone may have been affected. The cuts span multiple verticals, including cloud operations, customer support, consulting, and certain engineering functions, and are not limited to any single business unit. Even associated entities like Oracle Financial Software Services have seen reductions.
One of the most notable aspects of the layoffs is the way they were carried out. Many employees said they received emails early in the morning, around 6 AM, informing them that their jobs had been cut with immediate effect. In several cases, access to company systems was revoked at the same time. A significant number of those impacted are experienced professionals, including long-tenured employees who have spent decades with the company. Mid-level managers and senior individual contributors appear to have been disproportionately affected.
The move comes as the company is rapidly shifting its focus toward AI and cloud infrastructure. Earlier reports also indicated that the company faced challenges in arranging funding for its ambitious $500 billion ‘Stargate’ data center project with OpenAI. Following these difficulties, it later announced plans to raise around $50 billion through debt to support its ongoing infrastructure expansion. Notably, the firm has been making massive investments in building new data centers, upgrading high-performance computing systems, and preparing its platforms to handle large-scale AI workloads. These efforts require significant spending on advanced GPUs, servers, cooling technology, and networking equipment, with total AI-related investments expected to exceed $150 billion over the coming years.
Meanwhile, on the revenue front, Oracle is seeing a mix of strong growth and rising pressure. In Q2 FY26, the company reported revenue of $16.1 billion, marking a 14% year-on-year increase. Its cloud business continued to drive performance, with cloud revenue reaching $8 billion, up 34%, while cloud infrastructure grew even faster at around 68%. Earlier, for FY25, the company had posted total revenue of $57.4 billion. However, increasing costs and heavy capital expenditure, expected to go as high as $50 billion for FY2026, are putting pressure on overall profitability.
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Ashutosh is a Senior Writer at The Tech Portal, largely reporting on new tech, and intersection of technology and business. Ashutosh’s career spans across nearly a decade of technology writing across multiple platforms and languages.
