Oracle is decreasing employees in its cloud division, a transfer aimed toward managing prices whereas the corporate continues to pour cash into AI infrastructure.
Sources acquainted with the matter mentioned staff had been instructed this week that their positions had been reduce. Among the layoffs had been tied to efficiency, and hiring continues to be underway in elements of the unit, in line with two of the sources.
India seems to be one of many hardest-hit areas, whereas groups within the US are nonetheless studying the extent of the reductions. DatacentreDynamics additionally reported job losses in Canada.
Within the Seattle space – lengthy thought of the hub of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) – greater than 150 jobs have been eradicated, sources mentioned. The corporate introduced final yr that it will transfer its headquarters to Nashville, and it now lists extra openings within the state of Tennessee than in some other.
The whole variety of job cuts is unclear, however affected groups embrace OCI’s Enterprise Engineering group, Fusion ERP, knowledge centre operations technicians, technical undertaking managers on the AI/ML workforce, and members of the broader OCI AI workforce.
Whereas the primary wave has targeted on the US and India, staff in different areas have been invited to conferences with unclear functions with managers later this week, elevating considerations about additional cuts.
This isn’t the primary spherical of layoffs for OCI. In November, the division let go of a number of hundred staff, and Oracle made deeper company-wide cuts in March, affecting 1000’s.
On the identical time, Oracle is hiring closely to help the enlargement of its AI knowledge centres, that are central to OpenAI’s Stargate undertaking. Earlier this yr, OpenAI agreed to a $30 billion-a-year contract with Oracle. The cloud supplier has additionally secured large-scale contracts with TikTok and Temu.
The corporate’s share worth surged 52% this yr, reaching report highs. The momentum has been fuelled partially by its cloud enterprise, which final month signed a cope with OpenAI for about 4.5 gigawatts of information centre energy within the US. However assembly the rising demand for AI providers comes at a steep value. Oracle is anticipated to spend tens of billions of {dollars} constructing large new server farms, and its free money stream for the fiscal yr ending in Might was detrimental.
Many giant tech companies are making comparable strikes – slicing bills in some areas whereas investing closely in AI. Microsoft has eradicated about 15,000 jobs in 2025, whereas Amazon and Meta have additionally decreased employees.
In a June submitting, Oracle mentioned it periodically makes workforce adjustments due to shifts in technique, reorganisations, or efficiency points. “The forms of restructurings have resulted, and will sooner or later end result, in elevated restructuring prices and briefly decreased productiveness whereas staff alter to the restructuring,” the corporate mentioned.
For now, the combo of layoffs and new hiring underscores the balancing act for Oracle and different tech firms: scaling up AI infrastructure at report pace whereas controlling the associated fee burden that include main funding in {hardware}.
See additionally: Cloud jobs reduce as AI bites
Need to be taught extra about cybersecurity and the cloud from trade leaders? Try Cyber Safety & Cloud Expo going down in Amsterdam, California, and London.
Discover different upcoming enterprise know-how occasions and webinars powered by TechForge right here.