Oracle eliminated roughly 21,000 full-time positions worldwide in the past year as the company pivots its operations around artificial intelligence, the technology giant disclosed in its annual report.
The firm reported a global headcount of about 141,000 employees as of May 31, 2026, down from about 162,000 at the same time last year. The cuts represent roughly 13% of Oracle’s workforce.
The report, filed with U.S. regulators, said that the “deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce.”
Oracle recorded approximately $1.8 billion in severance payments and other restructuring costs over the past year, according to the filing. That sum is significantly higher than the $374 million restructuring bill the company reported in the previous financial year.
The company said senior employees had posted online about “significant” job cuts in April, but the full extent of the layoffs was not known until the annual report was published.
Oracle acknowledged that its restructuring efforts “can be disruptive” and warned that the reorganisation may lead to a shortage of skilled workers in certain roles, resulting in a loss of productivity that could impact earnings.
In a statement to the BBC, a company spokesperson said: “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 company has been racing to build data centres for AI giants including OpenAI and Meta. MSI previously reported that Oracle planned to spend at least $50 billion on infrastructure this year, in a June 11 market roundup. Co-founder Larry Ellison, one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, serves as Oracle’s chief technology officer.
Oracle’s cuts are part of a broader trend across the technology sector. Amazon and Meta have each eliminated thousands of jobs in recent months as they redirect spending toward AI infrastructure. Google, Amazon and Meta collectively plan to invest some $650 billion in the technology this year, according to company statements. Amazon said it plans to spend $200 billion over the next year on AI investments. The e-commerce and tech giant, which employs more than 1.5 million people worldwide, also said it would cut about 30,000 jobs in multiple rounds of layoffs.
A senior executive at Amazon said in an internal note last October that the company needed to be organised “more leanly” because AI was “enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before.”
More than 100,000 tech workers have been laid off in the past year, according to estimates from employment tracking firms.