For some Oracle employees in the US, the workday ended before it even began. On Monday at around 6:00 a.m. local time, employees included in the tech giant's new wave of lay-offs received an email from the company informing them that their positions were being eliminated as part of a "broader organizational change." The notification offered no lengthy transition period: That very day, they were told, would be their last day on the job.
According to Business Insider, which reported on the lay-offs based on an internal email and three affected workers, access to company systems was already being revoked for some employees even before the official notice arrived. Additional employees shared similar experiences on social media and internal forums.
Oracle has not yet disclosed how many employees were affected in the new wave and did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment. Therefore, despite various estimates circulating online, there is currently no verified number of laid-off workers. What is known is that the cuts are taking place in the US, and that plans for further lay-offs were already on the table at the company in recent weeks.
Severance package for the laid-off workers
According to the disclosed email, affected American employees were offered a severance package comprising four weeks of base salary, plus an additional week for every year of tenure at the company.
For veteran employees, the sudden announcement sparked considerable anger. On Oracle employee forums, testimonials appeared from workers claiming they lost system access in the early morning hours and received the termination notice only afterward. One employee reported having worked at the company for more than 20 years before receiving the email. These reports consist of online employee testimonials rather than official company information, and should be viewed accordingly.
21,000 employees cut
The current wave of cuts follows a year in which Oracle's workforce had already contracted significantly. According to the company's official annual report, at the end of May 2026 it employed approximately 141,000 people worldwide, including about 49,000 in the US and roughly 92,000 in other countries. A year earlier, the employee count stood at approximately 162,000. In other words, the workforce decreased by about 21,000 people, or roughly 13%.
It is important to qualify that this decline in employee numbers does not necessarily equate to 21,000 lay-offs. The company's figures show the net change in overall headcount and do not detail how many left due to lay-offs, resignations, or other reasons.
Simultaneously: Massive AI investments
The cuts come at a time when Oracle is dramatically increasing its investments in cloud infrastructure and AI. In the most recent quarter, the company spent about $28.5 billion on capital expenditures, compared to roughly $8.5 billion in the corresponding period last year. For the current fiscal year, it projects capital expenditures of between $90 billion and $95 billion, intended in part to expand data centers and computing infrastructure for AI. At the same time, Oracle continues to grow: Quarterly revenue rose by 30% to $19.3 billion, and cloud infrastructure revenue leaped by 121% to $7.4 billion.
Oracle has not claimed that the employees affected in the current wave were replaced by AI. However, the lay-offs arrive as the company directs vast sums toward infrastructure to enable its expansion in the artificial intelligence market while simultaneously scaling back its workforce.
And that is perhaps the broader picture emerging from the move: In the current era, lay-offs at tech companies no longer necessarily occur when business is shrinking. Sometimes they happen precisely while revenues are growing and investments are breaking records, with the money and positions simply being redirected elsewhere. For the employees who received the email at 6 a.m., that distinction is likely far less comforting.