Oracle cut 21,000 employees in 2026, says AI replaced some jobs

[SAN FRANCISCO] Oracle reduced its workforce by 21,000 employees in the past 12 months, a wider scale than previously known, including those whose jobs were eliminated by the use of artificial intelligence.

“The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce,” Oracle said on Monday (Jun 22) in an annual financial regulatory filing.

The company’s global headcount shrank to 141,000 full-time employees as at the May 31, the end of the fiscal year, compared with 162,000 a year earlier, Oracle said. The reductions led to about US$1.8 billion in restructuring costs.

Oracle is under financial pressure because of an expensive build-out of AI data centres for customers such as OpenAI. Earlier this year, it began cutting thousands of jobs as part of efforts to save cash, Bloomberg has reported. The exact scope of the cuts was never formally disclosed.

As at the end of May, the company had about 49,000 US workers while about 92,000 were employed internationally.

The company’s headcount is now slightly lower than it was before buying electronic health records company Cerner in 2022. That US$28 billion acquisition added thousands of employees, with many concentrated near Cerner’s Kansas City-area headquarters. BLOOMBERG