Oracle has begun its largest-ever round of layoffs, with estimates suggesting up to 30,000 jobs could be cut globally—and the severance comes with strings attached. Affected employees will only receive their payout after signing termination documents sent via DocuSign. No signature, no money. The company has not publicly commented on the layoffs or the severance terms.The termination emails, sent from “Oracle Leadership,” started hitting inboxes at 6AM IST in India and 3AM Pacific in the US on Tuesday. No prior warning, no HR call, no manager in the loop. The email informed employees their roles had been eliminated as part of a “broader organizational change” and that the day they read the email was their last working day. Many were locked out of internal systems almost immediately after.
Oracle’s US severance: four weeks’ base pay plus one week per year of service, capped at 26 weeks
For US employees, Oracle is offering four weeks of base salary for the first year of employment, plus one additional week for every year after that, up to a maximum of 26 weeks. To qualify for a full year in the calculation, employees must have worked at least six months in their last year. The payout will also be adjusted in states with a WARN notice period.It’s a noticeably thinner package than what other tech companies have put on the table recently. Block, which cut nearly half its workforce last week, offered 20 weeks of salary plus one week per year of tenure, six months of healthcare, and a $5,000 stipend. Meta’s 2025 severance included 16 weeks of pay plus two weeks per year of service, along with six months of health insurance. Oracle’s offer doesn’t appear to include any healthcare continuation or additional perks.In India, the severance is expected to follow the standard N+2 formula—N being the number of years worked, paid out in months. Unvested RSUs, however, are forfeited entirely.
The layoffs could hit 30,000 as Oracle scrambles to fund its AI data centre expansion
TD Cowen estimates the cuts could reach 20,000 to 30,000 employees—roughly 18% of Oracle’s 162,000-strong global workforce—freeing up $8–10 billion in cash flow. The money is needed to fund a debt-heavy push into AI infrastructure that has put the company under serious financial pressure. Oracle has added $58 billion in new debt in two months, its stock has lost over half its value since September 2025, and several US banks have pulled back from financing its data centre projects.Posts on Reddit’s r/employeesOfOracle and Blind indicate the cuts have hit teams across Oracle Health, Cloud, Sales, Customer Success, NetSuite IDC, RHS, and SVOS.
