Oracle cuts 21,000 jobs in a year

Oracle Corp. -- a global technology company that reduced its workforce by around 21,000 employees over the past 12 months -- has acknowledged that the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies contributed to some of the job cuts.

In its annual financial regulatory filing, the company has said its global workforce stood at 141,000 full-time employees as of May 31, down from 162,000 a year earlier.

“The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce,” the company said in the filing.

The workforce reduction resulted in restructuring costs of about $1.8 billion, it added.

However, the disclosure comes as Oracle continues to invest heavily in building AI infrastructure and data centres to meet growing demand from customers, including OpenAI.

The company has been expanding its AI capabilities amid intensifying competition among major cloud service providers.

As of the end of May, Oracle employed about 49,000 workers in the United States and around 92,000 internationally.

In addition, the company's headcount has fallen slightly below levels seen before its 2022 acquisition of electronic health records firm Cerner.

Moreover, the latest figures shed light on the scale of layoffs that have taken place across Oracle's operations in recent months.

Earlier this year, reports indicated that Oracle had begun laying off employees globally, with affected workers receiving early-morning emails informing them that their employment had been terminated.

Several employees took to social media platforms to report receiving the notifications, which were said to have started arriving in inboxes at around 6 am (local time in the US).

The latest filing marks one of the clearest indications yet of how AI adoption is beginning to reshape workforce requirements across major technology companies.