Is AI Coming For Your Job? Concerns Mount As Oracle Lays Off Another Batch of 21,000 Employees

Oracle has cut around 21,000 jobs globally over the past year, with the company's latest annual report pointing directly to artificial intelligence as one of the reasons behind the reduction.

The US software and cloud computing giant said it had about 141,000 full-time employees as of 31 May 2026, down from roughly 162,000 a year earlier. In the filing, Oracle said the 'deployment of AI technologies across our operations has resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce.'

The scale of the cuts, equal to around 13% of its workforce, adds to growing worries about how the rush into AI is affecting jobs across the tech sector. Oracle's own report also shows the financial cost of the shake-up, with the company spending about £1.36bn on severance and restructuring in the last year alone, as it pushes harder into the AI race and expands the infrastructure needed to support it.

Oracle's annual report lays out the scale of the cuts

The latest filing gives the clearest picture yet of how large Oracle's recent cuts have been. While reports of layoffs had circulated in recent months, including claims from senior employees online that the company made massive cuts in April, the full number had not been publicly detailed until the annual report was released.

The figures show Oracle's headcount fell from about 162,000 employees to around 141,000 over a 12-month period.

Oracle linked those reductions to the use of AI across its own operations. In the report, the company said AI deployment had already led to workforce reductions and could lead to more. That is a notable admission at a time when many workers in the tech industry are trying to work out whether AI will simply change their jobs or remove them altogether.

The company also made clear that the restructuring has come at a high cost. Oracle said it incurred around $1.8bn, or roughly £1.36bn, in severance payments and other restructuring expenses over the past year. That is far above the $374m restructuring bill it recorded in the previous financial year, showing just how much larger this latest round of changes has been.

Oracle warned in the same report that the process itself could cause problems inside the business. It said its restructuring efforts 'can be disruptive' and noted that reorganising the company may leave it short of skilled workers in some roles. That, in turn, could hurt productivity and have an impact on earnings.

The job cuts are taking place as Oracle races to build out more AI infrastructure. The company has been trying to roll out data centres for AI customers, including OpenAI and Meta, and the BBC previously reported that Oracle planned to spend at least $50bn (£37.8bn) on infrastructure this year.

The company, co-founded by Larry Ellison, is clearly betting heavily on the AI boom, even if that comes with painful reductions elsewhere in the business.

Oracle is not the only tech company making cuts

Oracle is far from the only major technology company cutting staff while increasing spending on AI. Across the sector, companies are pouring vast sums into the computing power, data centres, and systems needed to support AI tools and services. At the same time, many are trimming headcount, often in areas they no longer see as essential or where automation is starting to take on a bigger role.

Amazon and Meta are among the clearest examples. Both companies have cut thousands of jobs in recent months while ramping up their AI spending. Google, Amazon, and Meta are expected to spend around $650bn (£491bn) on AI this year, underlining the scale of the shift underway. Amazon alone has said it plans to spend $200bn (£151bn) over the next year on AI investments, more than any of the other major tech groups mentioned.

The spending has been accompanied by layoffs. Amazon, which employs more than 1.5 million people worldwide, has also said it would cut about 30,000 jobs through several rounds of layoffs. In an internal note last October, one senior Amazon executive said the company needed to be organised 'more leanly' because AI was 'enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before'.

Those decisions are feeding a wider sense of unease across the industry. According to estimates from employment tracking firms, more than 100,000 tech workers have been laid off in the past year.

While companies often frame the cuts as part of restructuring or efficiency drives, Oracle's filing stands out because it directly ties job losses to the use of AI technologies inside the business.

That does not mean AI is the only reason behind every cut in tech. Companies are also under pressure to control costs while making room for enormous capital spending on infrastructure.

But Oracle's report offers one of the clearest signs yet that AI is not just creating new products and new investment plans. It is also changing staffing decisions in a very direct way, and for thousands of workers across the industry, that shift is already being felt.