Oracle has reduced its global workforce by approximately 21,000 employees over the past 12 months, revealing a larger scale of job cuts than previously disclosed as the company increasingly adopts artificial intelligence across its operations.
“The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce,” Oracle said in an annual financial regulatory filing.
The technology giant reported that its global full-time employee count declined to 141,000 as of May 31, the end of its fiscal year, compared with 162,000 employees a year earlier. As a result of the workforce restructuring, Oracle incurred around US$1.8 billion in related costs.
The workforce reduction comes as Oracle faces mounting financial pressure from its aggressive investment in AI infrastructure. The company continues to expand its network of AI-focused data centres to support major clients, including OpenAI. Earlier this year, reports indicated that Oracle had begun eliminating thousands of positions as part of broader cost-saving initiatives, although the company had not publicly disclosed the full extent of the cuts at that time.
According to the filing, the company employed approximately 49,000 workers in the United States at the end of May, while around 92,000 employees worked across its international operations.
Oracle’s current workforce is now slightly smaller than it was before the company acquired Cerner in 2022. The US$28 billion acquisition significantly expanded Oracle’s employee base, adding thousands of workers, many of whom were located near Cerner’s headquarters in the Kansas City metropolitan area.
The latest workforce reduction highlights how major technology companies continue to use artificial intelligence to streamline operations while simultaneously investing billions of dollars in AI infrastructure and cloud computing capabilities.
