A few weeks after wide speculation that HR tech giant Oracle was eyeing a massive reduction in force to help fund its AI ventures, layoff notices started hitting this week.
According to reports, thousands of Oracle employees were let go on Tuesday. Some employees have described that the number of users on an internal Slack platform dropped this week from 165,000 to 155,000, though other reporting suggests the total number of employees cut could number closer to 30,000, in line with estimates predicted earlier this year.
The news was shared with employees via email, according to a report in Business Insider, with affected employees—located in the U.S., Canada, India and other regions around the globe—being immediately locked out of the company’s internal system when the emails went out at 6 a.m. ET. The message cited “Oracle’s current business needs” and efforts to drive “broader organizational change” among the factors driving the decision.
Research earlier this year by analysts at TD Cowen found that cutting 20,000-30,000 employees could generate up to $10 billion for Oracle, whose stock price has dropped 25% since the start of 2026. The report suggested that the cash flow would go to fund AI data centers—a project for which Oracle reportedly has a $20 billion shortfall for this fiscal year.
Empathy over email?
As mass layoffs have picked up steam in the last year, the method of delivery that organizations deploy has come under increasing scrutiny. Oracle isn’t alone in its email approach—Amazon made headlines earlier this year after its planned mass layoff email was accidentally sent early, and to the wrong employees. Yet, Oracle is coming under some fire for the seeming brevity and vagueness of the message, which was reportedly signed by “Oracle Leadership.”
Layoff communication that isn’t clear or empathetic can ultimately ding employer brand and morale among retained employees, according to a recent report from Careerminds. In a survey of 1,000 individuals who had either lost jobs or witnessed cuts at their companies, 70% said messaging was not transparent enough about the reasons for the reduction, which made the news come off as impersonal.
More than half of the retained employees said the way the layoff news was communicated to their former colleagues damaged the trust they had in their organization.
“Senior stakeholders should always know that the way the message is shared is often just as important as the message itself, especially during the time of significant change like a layoff, when a company’s commitment to culture via comms will be put to the test,” says Raymond Lee, president of Careerminds.
Credit: Source link
