Oracle cut 21,000 jobs over the past year, according to its latest annual report, as the company expanded the use of AI technologies across its operations. The layoffs amounted to about 13% of its workforce, after Oracle said it had 162,000 employees at the end of May 2025. In the report released Monday, the company said, "The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have led, and may continue to lead, to reductions in our workforce." Oracle said the restructuring cost about $1.8 billion.
The largest reduction in percentage terms came in Oracle’s hardware group, where about a third of staff were cut, roughly 1,000 employees. In absolute numbers, the biggest cut was in research and development, where 7,000 jobs were eliminated, or 14% of the division. Sales and marketing lost 6,000 jobs, equal to 19.4% of that workforce, while cloud operations and services each lost 3,000 employees, representing 10.3% and 8.1% respectively. Administrative staff were reduced by 1,000 workers, or 8.3%.
Geographically, Oracle cut 9,000 jobs in the United States, 15.5% of its U.S. workforce, and 12,000 jobs internationally, 11.5% of that workforce. The company’s layoffs are among the largest in recent years to be linked, at least in part, to efficiency gains from AI deployment.
Oracle is one of the leading players in AI infrastructure and plans to invest $50 billion this year in data centers and supporting infrastructure. Unlike cloud giants such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft, Oracle does not build its own AI models, instead focusing on providing computing services to major tech companies and AI firms that do. Among its partners is OpenAI, in the ambitious Stargate project.
