Oracle began the process of laying off thousands of employees in a layoff email received at 6am yesterday without any prior notice. It is estimated that between 20,000–30,000 employees or 18% of the global workforce will be affected by another round of layoffs by Oracle.
In the email sent, Oracle said the workforce reductions were made for the company's business needs and part of a broader organizational change. However, the real reason is to save up to 10 billion to finance Oracle's massive investment in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. Oracle is taking on $58 billion in new debt to build AI data centers and its stock has fallen more than 50% since September 2025.
Tech workers are typically laid off because their jobs are being taken over by AI. In Oracle's case, the huge investment supporting OpenAI's AI data center project is the reason why human workers are now losing jobs.
