Oracle is reportedly planning to initiate a fresh round of job cuts as the multinational technology company shifts its spending priorities. The scale of the layoff is unclear, but industry estimates suggest that up to 3,000 Indian employees could be affected.
As the company wants payroll reductions before the new quarter begins, industry experts suggest that September 1 could be a key date. Managers have been asked to identify roles that could be eliminated, further increasing speculation.
The company also aims to reduce spending across all teams, signalling that it is rapidly attempting to reprioritise its previous capital expenditure structure.
Oracle has significantly reduced its workforce in recent years. As of May 31, 2026, the company employed approximately 1,41,000 employees, falling roughly 13 per cent from 1,62,000 employees on May 31, 2025. According to Oracle’s annual filings, the largest number of job cuts were conducted in the Sales and Marketing department, with almost 6,000 layoffs.
An equal number of job cuts were conducted across cloud services, services, and research and development lines of business. However, fewer cuts were made in the hardware section, indicating that it is a priority.
The company, which mainly focused on cloud storage, has now expanded into building infrastructure for AI training. ChatGPT maker OpenAI signed a $300 billion 5-year contract with Oracle to buy computing power. xAI uses Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to run its Grok models for businesses.
In February, the company announced plans to raise up to $50 billion this year through a combination of debt and equity financing. The proceeds will be used to meet demand from its largest customers, including Nvidia, Meta, OpenAI and TikTok.
However, Oracle is borrowing to meet the demand. In September 2025, the company sold $18 billion in bonds. The aggressive debt-fueled expansion is concerning, as only a few major customers account for the billions of dollars it spends to buy AI infrastructure.
According to a report, Microsoft has also placed around 500 employees in India on performance improvement plans (PIP), estimating that roughly 2 per cent of their Indian workforce could be affected. The company has been scaling its artificial intelligence through massive capital expenditure.
Hence, AI might not be replacing IT sector jobs. To compete in the AI space, tech giants such as Oracle and Microsoft are reducing their workforce to meet spending needs for new AI infrastructure.
