Tech giant Oracle cuts 21,000 jobs as it embraces AI

Oracle shed about 21,000 roles globally in the last year as the US technology giant reshapes its business around artificial intelligence (AI), the firm’s latest annual report shows.

The software and cloud computing firm says it had around 141,000 full-time employees as of 31 May 2026, down from about 162,000 workers at the same time last year.

The “deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce,” the report says.

The cuts, which amount to about 13% of Oracle’s workforce, are part of a wider trend among tech firms as they spend hundreds of billions of dollars on building AI infrastructure like data centres.

Amazon and Facebook-owner Meta have cut thousands of job in recent months as they invest heavily in AI.

More than 100,000 tech workers have been laid off in the past year, according to estimates from employment tracking firms.

Oracle made “significant” job cuts in April, according to senior employees posting online, but the full extent of the layoffs had not been revealed until its annual report was filed.

The firm said the cuts have led to about $1.8bn (£1.36bn) in severance payments and other restructuring costs in the past year.

The sum is significantly higher than the $374m restructuring bill in the previous financial year.

Oracle said that its restructuring efforts “can be disruptive”. It warned that the reorganisation may lead to a shortage in skilled workers in certain roles, resulting in a loss of productivity that could impact its earnings.

The company told the BBC: “As our cloud and AI businesses grow, we will continually balance our resources and restructure our development group to help ensure we have the right people delivering the best cloud and AI products to our customers around the world.”