Oracle’s workforce has reportedly declined by roughly 21,000 employees in fiscal 2026, as the technology giant continues to restructure its business.
The company had a total workforce of 141,000 at the end of May 2026, compared with around 162,000 at the same period last year, according to its annual report released on Monday. It has cut thousands of jobs as part of its restructuring activities, which are partly being driven by continued AI adoption across its entire business.
According to the filing, Oracle spent US$1,84 billion in severance payments and other exit costs related to restructuring in fiscal 2026 alone – a figure that is significantly higher than last year, which sat around $374 million.
The filing added that workforce adjustments were driven by a variety of reasons, including performance issues, management and product changes and strategic shifts and acquisitions.
Across the wider technology industry, worries over job cuts because of AI persist, with technology giants reducing their workforces. According to Layoffs.fyi, nearly 200 companies have laid off more than 119,800 employees so far in 2026 alone.
Oracle has committed itself heavily to the AI data centre boom, having signed significant deals with OpenAI and Meta to compete with other industry giants. However, Reuters noted that company shares were down about 10% this year, with the company burning cash and issuing debt to fund its efforts.
Some of the company’s job cuts earlier this year were widely publicised, with 30,000 employees waking up in March 2026 to a redundancy email. According to Bloomberg at the time, investors were concerned over how the technology giant would pay for its data centre expansions.
Alongside Oracle, Cloudflare, Meta and Amazon, among others, have made job cuts this year.
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