Oracle layoffs on a large scale, affected employees received termination notices in the early morning, with compensation set at 4+N

Local time March 31 (Tuesday), U.S. technology company Oracle launched layoffs worldwide as part of the company’s cost-cutting plan. Multiple affected employees and information shared on social platforms confirmed that at 3:00 a.m. Pacific Time, they were suddenly cut off from access to the company’s internal systems, and received termination notices in their email inboxes. According to employees who were laid off, the company’s severance pay standard is 4 weeks of base salary, plus an additional 1 week of pay for each extra year of service, capped at 26 weeks of base salary.

** A copy of an internal termination email obtained by the media **

A copy of an internal termination email obtained by the media shows that in its notice, Oracle wrote: “After careful consideration of current business needs, we have decided to revoke your position, as part of a broader organizational restructuring. Therefore, today will be your last working day.” Employees who were affected said the termination notice was sent at 3:00 a.m. Pacific Time, and immediately after the notice was sent, employees were cut off from access to internal systems.

At present, the scope of this round of layoffs is still unclear, but based on posts on social media by dozens of affected employees, the layoffs impacted personnel in multiple locations around the world. The latest filings disclose that as of May 2025, Oracle has approximately 162k full-time employees. This round of layoffs affected multiple core business areas of Oracle, including health, sales, cloud services, and more. Among the terminated personnel who posted, many were software engineers.

Regarding severance pay, an internal provision sent to employees laid off in the United States shows that Oracle provides 4 weeks of base pay, plus an additional 1 week of pay for each full year worked, for a total maximum of no more than 26 weeks. If an employee works less than 6 months during the last year of employment, it will not be counted as a full year for calculation purposes.

** Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison **

Industry analysts say the core background of this round of layoffs is that Oracle is fully投入ting AI data center construction while strictly controlling operating costs. Reports in January indicated that the company’s Stargate data center project in cooperation with OpenAI would cost 500 billion dollars, and in February Oracle had just announced raising 50 billion dollars in debt to fund infrastructure investment. In early March, Oracle executives told investors that they didn’t need to worry about the company’s huge spending on data centers, because the company is “very, very good” at cutting costs.

In addition, although Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison said during the earnings call in early March that the so-called “software industry crisis” (SaaSpocalypse) would only affect other companies and would not reach Oracle, the latest data show that Oracle’s stock price has fallen by nearly 30% this year so far.

So far, Oracle has not made any comment on this round of layoffs.

Proofread by Hu Yanluo