The article seems to be more about Oracle being forced to cough up $7B as collateral for one of their new shiny (future-) data centers - even though apparently they tried to make this requirement go away, but the regulators weren't touched by their crocodile tears.
> By the end of fiscal year 2026, the company's workforce was slashed by about 21,000 employees – a decline of roughly 13% – from 162,000 to 141,000 workers.
You kinda think senior management knows what goes on, but if you ever got in touch with senior management, you just know they have no idea and go off of vibes, as soon as the vibe shifts around them, its time to socialize the consequences... downwards
“Oracle petitioned the court against the requirement, arguing that these financing costs would deter future investment in the state, while emphasizing its commitment to the project, […]. Regulators, on the other hand, remained firm in their stance, clarifying that existing customers should not subsidize data centers. This issue is not limited to Wisconsin: At least 24 US states have already approved special rates, minimum conditions, exit penalties, and collateral requirements for heavy electricity consumers.
>According to the annual report of the computing giant published this week, the company had 141,000 employees as of May 31, 2026. This is a significant downsizing compared to the corresponding period last year, when the number of employees at Oracle stood at approximately 162,000 people. The report further reveals that the company paid a massive fortune of $1.84 billion for severance pay and other retirement expenses accompanying the restructuring moves in the current fiscal year.
Workforce remains huge at 141k so perhaps a non story and just normal big company rounds of redundancies that were the case pre-ai
20k layoffs is still humongous, something that easily shows up on a monthly labor report.
Put another way, this is 13% of their workforce. It may be trying to be normalized, but it is in fact not normal to remove over an 8th of your business at once.
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 16.1 ms ] threadRecent related:
Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48993488
S&P Global has lowered Oracle’s creditworthiness from BBB to BBB-
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48909768
And 3 months ago:
Oracle slashes 30k jobs
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47587935
Is this article from the future?
> Story by WALLA! MONEY
Who?
When I joined the grass cutting lawnmower party, I didn't think it would mow my lawn!
“Oracle petitioned the court against the requirement, arguing that these financing costs would deter future investment in the state, while emphasizing its commitment to the project, […]. Regulators, on the other hand, remained firm in their stance, clarifying that existing customers should not subsidize data centers. This issue is not limited to Wisconsin: At least 24 US states have already approved special rates, minimum conditions, exit penalties, and collateral requirements for heavy electricity consumers.
I'm not an American, so I'm not familiar with Oracle's database tech but looking through history of what good/bad Oracle has done for the world:
- good: btrfs for linux
- good: mysql (inherited)
- good: openjdk (inherited)
- good: virtualbox
- bad: oracle v google (copyrighting APIs)
- bad: mass surveillance (i.e. BlueKai)
- bad: aggressive value extraction
- bad: general mega corporation bullying
Sad that 21,000 people lost their jobs, but I don't think many people are shedding tears for Oracle itself.
Put another way, this is 13% of their workforce. It may be trying to be normalized, but it is in fact not normal to remove over an 8th of your business at once.