(This story has been updated with new information.)
The tech giant Oracle is expected to lay off thousands of employees as the company, formerly headquartered in Silicon Valley, attempts to address its plummeting stock price tied to artificial intelligence commitments, according to CNBC.
Oracle laid off 158 workers from its Pleasanton office in Northern California, according to a California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN).
The majority of those affected are software developers, along with more than a dozen application developers and several product staff members, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The full extent of layoffs has not been announced by Oracle, but people were posting online about their firings, many of whom held positions in software engineering and cybersecurity. Elsewhere on Reddit, in what is labeled an Oracle employees group, there was discussion about job cuts in Canada, India and the United States over the last week.
Employees started receiving notifications on March 31 that the company intended to lay them off, according to a filing with Washington’s WARN program.
“After careful consideration of Oracle’s current business needs, we have made the decision to eliminate your role as part of a broader organizational change,” read an email obtained by Business Insider. “As a result, today is your last working day.”
This plan from Oracle had been in the works for a while, aimed at saving money and offsetting costs associated with its AI data center expansion, according to a Bloomberg report published on March 5.
Oracle declined to comment to USA TODAY as of March 31.
Oracle in California, beyond
Oracle has six offices located throughout California, including in Irvine, Pleasanton, Redwood Shores, Rocklin, Santa Clara and Santa Monica.
Redwood Shores, which sits in the heart of Silicon Valley, once served as the company’s main headquarters from 1989 to 2020, before Oracle relocated its base of operation to Austin, Texas in 2020.
Companies with 100 or more employees are legally required to provide 60 calendar days’ notice in advance of planned closings and mass layoffs.
Oracle issued a WARN notice to California on April 1, according to state records.
A WARN notice filed in Washington could provide additional insight into who may be impacted by the layoffs.
The company intends to lay off 491 employees who worked remotely in Washington and at its Seattle sites, according to a notice filed with Washington’s WARN system.
Oracle says in the notice that the layoffs are due to “a reduction in force,” and that it would not be closing its Seattle sites.
“These layoffs are not the result of, nor are they expected to result in the relocation or contracting out of Oracle’s operations or the affected employees’ positions,” the notice from Oracle reads.
Employees were notified on March 31 by the company about the layoffs, but will not immediately lose their jobs, according to the notice. Oracle plans to lay off these employees by June 1, 2026.
Of the 491 jobs listed in the Washington WARN notice, the majority of those receiving layoff notices are software developers, ranging from junior to more senior positions. Program managers, product managers, technical analysts, financial analysts, and IT managers appeared on the list of layoffs.
Employees laid off at Oracle in the U.S. are being offered a four-week base salary severance package, which includes an additional week of pay for each additional year of employment, up to 26 weeks, according to Business Insider.
Why would Oracle lay off so many people?
In total, the job reductions could account for about 30,000 jobs, or about 18% of Oracle’s total workforce, Luke Yang, an analyst with the research firm Morningstar, told USA TODAY.
The layoff “should improve Oracle’s operating efficiency … and boost its revenue per headcount significantly,” to match competitors such as Microsoft, Yang said.
“The main areas affected are most likely software engineering because AI-based coding tools (Codex, Claude Code) have dramatically improved software engineers’ efficiency,” Yang said. “This round’s layoff is global. We see some engineers in India got impacted, too. I don’t think the layoff would affect Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s ramp-up plans.”
In January, President Donald Trump announced the Stargate venture to ramp up U.S. AI deployment, with Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son at the White House. Ellison said the first of the project’s data centers is currently under construction in Texas.
Oracle’s cash flow is expected to trend negative over the coming years due to data center spending, with expenditures expected to pay off in 2023, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Last month, Oracle said it would raise as much as $50 billion this year through a combination of debt and equity sales.
Contributing: Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, USA TODAY; Reuters
Noe Padilla is a Northern California Reporter for USA Today. Contact him at [email protected], follow him on X @1NoePadilla or on Bluesky @noepadilla.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Oracle lays off more than 150 California workers
Reporting by Noe Padilla and Mike Snider, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
Add a Comment