Oracle began a fresh round of layoffs Monday, extending a year of workforce reductions while the company commits tens of billions of dollars to the data centers behind its AI ambitions. Employees received notices as early as 6 a.m., according to reports, and the total number affected has not been disclosed.¹

The message was blunt: “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. As a result, today is your last working day.”² The notification instructed workers to provide a personal email address before their corporate access was shut down, underscoring the speed of the separation process.²

For some employees, the execution became the story. Yurie Rich, an Oracle vice president in Seattle, said she learned she had been cut only after losing access to company systems: “So apparently, don’t even get the courtesy of an e-mail.”¹ Barry Hickson, a product-development director who said he had spent nearly 29 years at Oracle, similarly said access was removed before he could receive the corporate-email notice.¹

The layoffs follow a steep contraction already visible in Oracle’s filings: its full-time workforce fell by roughly 21,000, to about 141,000, in the fiscal year ending May 31.² Some teams had been earmarked for planned cuts in the double-digit percentages as Oracle sought to reduce payroll while taking on major debt for AI infrastructure.²

That austerity sits alongside a costly growth wager. Oracle reported $28.5 billion in first-quarter capital expenditures and maintained a fiscal-year forecast of $90 billion to $95 billion, even as cloud-infrastructure revenue climbed 121% to $7.4 billion.¹ Laid-off US employees are being offered four weeks of severance plus one additional week per year of service; the company’s previously reported standard plan capped payments at 26 weeks.³ Oracle did not respond to requests for comment.³