Oracle announces second layoff wave restructuring costs soar

Oracle has initiated another round of layoffs, the second workforce reduction in six months. Employees across various regions received termination notices on Monday through early-morning emails containing identical language to the previous wave from late March. While the company has not issued a public statement about these latest cuts, internal documents and regulatory filings indicate a steep rise in restructuring expenses.

The new layoffs coincide with a $700 million increase in Oracle’s restructuring budget, bringing the total for the year to approximately $2.8 billion. The company’s September 11 10-Q filing attributes the additional spending to “strategic measures” aimed at improving operational efficiency, including the integration of artificial intelligence into core functions. This is the first time Oracle has explicitly connected AI to its restructuring efforts in public statements.

Terminated employees reported losing access to corporate systems before receiving official notification. Eric Brunson, a senior principal offensive security researcher at Oracle, detailed the experience on LinkedIn after discovering his Slack and email accounts had been locked. His manager later confirmed the termination, which occurred two days before his restricted stock unit vesting date.

Severance packages differ based on job roles and geographic locations, according to an internal document reviewed by Business Insider. Some teams face reductions exceeding 10%, though Oracle has not disclosed the exact number of employees affected in this round. Over the past year, the company’s workforce has decreased by roughly 13%, from about 162,000 to 141,000 employees globally. The most significant declines occurred in research and development, sales and marketing, and international operations.

Oracle’s first 2026 layoff wave in March targeted divisions such as Revenue and Health Sciences, SaaS and Virtual Operations Services, and NetSuite’s India Development Centre. Company data shows research and development staffing fell from 50,000 to 43,000, while sales and marketing dropped from 31,000 to 25,000. International employees, totaling 92,000, experienced larger reductions than the 49,000 in the U.S. workforce.

The $700 million increase in restructuring costs does not solely reflect headcount reductions. Industry analysts explain that the figure includes termination benefits, contract cancellations, and other exit-related expenses across multiple countries. Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, noted that the supplement represents an estimated cost, not a final tally, and raises the total program expense by roughly one-third without specifying a completion timeline.

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Oracle’s earlier filings tied restructuring primarily to acquisitions and operational adjustments, but the September filing highlights AI as a new driving factor—a change Gogia described as more meaningful than the financial figure alone. The company has already allocated $1.97 billion of its original $2.1 billion restructuring budget, leaving minimal flexibility for further adjustments. A January projection suggested the 2026 program could impact 30,000 employees, though Oracle has not confirmed this number.

Unverified reports indicate 3,000 job cuts in India during September, but Oracle has not acknowledged these figures. Gogia warned that without confirmed headcount data, the full extent of the latest layoffs remains uncertain. The company did not respond to requests for comment, leaving many details about the layoffs and their effects on employees unresolved.