Oracle shed roughly 21,000 employees over the past year as the US software and cloud computing company redirects resources toward artificial intelligence, according to its latest annual report.
The company reported around 141,000 full-time employees as of May 31, 2026, down from approximately 162,000 at the same point in 2025. The report states plainly that “the deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce.”
The cuts came at a cost. Oracle recorded about $1.8bn in severance payments and other restructuring charges over the past year, a sharp rise from the $374m restructuring bill in the prior financial year. The company acknowledged the process “can be disruptive” and warned that reorganisation could leave gaps in skilled roles, potentially weighing on productivity and earnings.
Oracle 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.”
The scale of the cuts had not been publicly confirmed before the annual report was filed, though senior employees had posted about significant layoffs as far back as April.
Oracle has been building out data centre capacity to serve AI clients including OpenAI and Meta, and the BBC previously reported the company planned to spend at least $50bn on infrastructure this year. Co-founder Larry Ellison, who remains Oracle’s chief technology officer, is among the world’s wealthiest individuals.
The broader industry trend is well established. Google, Amazon, and Meta collectively plan to invest around $650bn in AI this year. Amazon, which employs more than 1.5 million people worldwide, said it would spend $200bn on AI over the coming year while also cutting approximately 30,000 jobs across several rounds of layoffs. Employment tracking firms estimate more than 100,000 tech workers have lost their jobs industry-wide in the past year.
