Oracle layoffs: Company's '6 am layoff emails' may return in next few days

Oracle employees have been told, in effect, to keep an eye on their inboxes. The company has drawn up plans for a fresh round of job cuts this month, Business Insider reported, citing people familiar with the plans and an internal document. The cuts could reach double-digit percentages on some teams, and managers have already been asked to submit lists of affected employees.The deadline is what makes this urgent. Oracle wants payroll reduced by the time its second quarter begins on September 1, which is barely three weeks away. And anyone who was around on March 31 knows exactly what that can look like: emails from "Oracle Leadership" arriving at roughly 6 am local time, no HR call, no manager warning, and one line doing all the work—"we have made the decision to eliminate your role." System access was cut the same morning. Employees in the US, India, Canada and Mexico were affected. Oracle declined to comment on the new plans.Oracle has already cut 21,000 job in a single fiscal yearThis would not be a fresh start so much as a continuation. Oracle's headcount fell by 21,000, or about 13%, in the fiscal year that ended May 31, taking the company from 162,000 employees to roughly 141,000. Restructuring costs jumped to $1.8 billion from $374 million a year earlier. In its annual filing, Oracle was unusually direct about why, saying the adoption of AI across its operations has already resulted in workforce reductions and may continue to.Every job cut is buying Oracle a bit more room to keep building data centresThe arithmetic behind the cuts is not subtle. Oracle spent $55.7 billion on infrastructure last fiscal year and burned $23.7 billion more cash than it took in. It raised $43 billion in debt and another $5 billion through stock sales, and expects to raise about $40 billion more this year. TD Cowen had estimated in January that trimming 20,000 to 30,000 roles could free up $8-10 billion in incremental free cash flow. That number now reads less like a forecast and more like a plan.Oracle’s revenue is climbing, which is what makes these layoffs land badlyOracle is not a company in trouble on paper. Revenue rose 17% last fiscal year and its cloud infrastructure business grew 77%. Net income jumped 95% to $6.13 billion in a recent quarter, and CEO Clay Magouyrk has pointed to $553 billion in remaining performance obligations as proof that demand for AI compute is outrunning supply. The stock disagrees. Oracle shares are down about 26% this year, hit both by anxiety over its debt load and by a wider selloff in software, on fears AI will eat traditional enterprise tools. Chairman Larry Ellison has dismissed that second worry, telling analysts in March the "SaaSpocalypse" would be someone else's problem.The March layoffs left 600 Oracle workers fighting over severance, RSUs and H-1B supportThe March cuts left a residue Oracle hasn't cleared. More than 600 former employees signed a letter on April 17 seeking higher severance, extended healthcare, H-1B support and stock acceleration. Oracle replied that it would handle concerns individually, not as a group. A survey of 272 laid-off workers found 62% were over 40 and 27% had restricted stock due to vest within 90 days—stock that vanished on the way out. In India, severance in the earlier round broadly followed the N+2 formula, with unvested RSUs forfeited.Whether the next batch of emails arrives at 6 am is, at this point, the only detail still unknown.Get the latest technology news and updates. Download the TOI App.