Tech giant Oracle cuts 21,000 jobs as it embraces AI

Oracle shed about 21,000 roles globally in the last year as the US technology giant reshapes its business around artificial intelligence (AI), the firm's latest annual report shows.

The software and cloud computing firm says it had around 141,000 full-time employees as of 31 May 2026, down from about 162,000 workers at the same time last year.

The "deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce," the report says.

The cuts, which amount to about 13% of Oracle's workforce, are part of a wider trend among tech firms as they spend hundreds of billions of dollars on building AI infrastructure like data centres.

More than 100,000 tech workers have been laid off in the past year, according to estimates from employment tracking firms.

The firm said the cuts have led to about $1.8bn (£1.36bn) in severance payments and other restructuring costs in the past year.

The sum is significantly higher than the $374m restructuring bill in the previous financial year.

Oracle said that its restructuring efforts "can be disruptive". It warned that the reorganisation may lead to a shortage in skilled workers in certain roles, resulting in a loss of productivity that could impact its earnings.

The BBC has contacted Oracle for further comment.

Oracle has been in a race to roll out data centres for AI giants like OpenAI and Meta.

The BBC previously reported that Oracle planned to spend at least $50bn on infrastructure this year.

The company was co-founded by Larry Ellison, one of the richest people in the world, who also serves as Oracle's chief technology officer.

Many companies have reduced their workforces - which is often a tech firm's biggest expense - as they invest in AI.

Google, Amazon and Meta collectively plan to pour some $650bn into the technology this year.

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 several 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."