Oracle hiring 5,000 for cloud business in race with Salesforce

[TORONTO] Oracle Corp is hiring another 5,000 employees for its cloud software business as it fights Salesforce.com Inc for market share in the fast-growing industry.

The hiring surge aims to beef up what's already Oracle's fastest-growing business, increasing revenue by 58 per cent in the quarter it reported June 21 compared with a year earlier.

The move is the latest in a back-and-forth between Oracle and its main rival that last week saw Salesforce chief executive officer Marc Benioff bragging he was on track to generate US$10 billion in cloud revenue this year, a goal Oracle was trying to hit first.

It also comes as other major US tech companies are touting their domestic hiring plans in a bid to avoid the ire of President Donald Trump.

Amazon.com Inc has pledged to hire more than 100,000 workers by 2018 and has been holding job fairs across the US.

Apple Inc has promised to invest US$1 billion in advanced US manufacturing, and its key supplier Foxconn Technology Group is building a factory in Wisconsin.

The new Oracle jobs are in addition to 1,000 cloud employees the company said in July it was hiring in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Oracle is scheduled to report fiscal 2018 first quarter earnings on Sept 14.

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