Salesforce, and Oracle announce massive layoffs in the US

Oracle has become the latest major technology company to deliver sweeping layoffs as the industry continues to recalibrate amid slowing growth and a pivot toward artificial intelligence.

The company has confirmed through multiple regulatory filings and employee accounts that more than 3,000 jobs have been cut globally since August.

These reductions span several regions, including the United States, India, the Philippines, Canada, and parts of Europe. In the Bay Area alone, hundreds of employees have been let go, marking one of the largest workforce reductions in Oracle’s history.

The layoffs come just weeks after Oracle trimmed 289 positions locally, and this fresh wave underscores the company’s ongoing restructuring strategy. According to filings with California’s Employment Development Department, Oracle will permanently eliminate 254 roles across multiple Bay Area sites.

These include 36 positions at its Pleasanton office on Owens Drive, 31 at its Santa Clara facility on Leonard Stocking Drive, and a staggering 187 roles at its former headquarters in Redwood City’s Oracle Parkway complex. Every affected job falls under the Professional Scientific and Technical Services sector, highlighting the broad impact on Oracle’s technology and support staff.

The job cuts have not been limited to California. In Seattle, Oracle disclosed that 101 employees have been laid off, following a previous round in which more than 250 workers were affected. Employees in Kansas, Texas, Massachusetts, and Washington State have also reported job losses.

Many described being summoned to sudden virtual meetings, only to be told that their positions were being eliminated on the spot. This pattern of abrupt communication has been noted across several regions and has added to the sense of unease among Oracle’s workforce.

Industry analysts point out that Oracle is not alone in its downsizing. Salesforce, another enterprise software heavyweight, confirmed parallel layoffs this week, with 262 jobs cut in San Francisco and an additional 93 in the Seattle region.

In total, Salesforce is shedding nearly 200 jobs across Washington State, citing efficiency gains from its Agentforce AI-driven platform. Both companies have framed these layoffs as permanent and tied to restructuring efforts that prioritize growth areas such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and professional services.

For Oracle specifically, the impact extends beyond its cloud infrastructure unit, which already faced cuts earlier this summer. DataCenter Dynamics reports that Oracle Health, formerly known as Cerner, has also been significantly affected, with Care Delivery and Consulting teams losing employees.

Corporate divisions and architects were included in the latest round of layoffs, signaling that Oracle’s retrenchment is broad and not confined to any single division. In Seattle, filings with the state’s Employment Security Department confirmed Oracle Health roles were disproportionately impacted.

The timing of these cuts aligns with Oracle’s shifting corporate footprint. Once headquartered in Santa Clara and later Redwood Shores, Oracle moved its official headquarters to Austin, Texas, during the pandemic.

Last year, CEO Larry Ellison announced yet another relocation to Nashville, Tennessee, as the company continues to reshape itself geographically and strategically. These moves have been framed as part of a long-term plan to reduce costs and align resources with high-growth opportunities in cloud services and health technology.

Despite the painful layoffs, Oracle remains focused on competing aggressively in cloud infrastructure and enterprise AI solutions.

The company has been under pressure to accelerate growth in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to keep pace with giants like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

Its acquisition of Cerner was expected to position it as a leader in health technology, but integrating that business has proven difficult, and the layoffs suggest the company is streamlining operations to improve profitability.

For employees, however, the scale of these cuts highlights the human toll of the tech industry’s transition. Many are grappling with sudden job losses after years of service, while others remain uncertain about their future within the company.

For the Bay Area, Seattle, and other regions hit hard by Oracle’s layoffs, the news adds to a broader wave of job losses across the tech sector as firms adjust to a post-pandemic environment shaped by AI adoption, shifting consumer demand, and global economic uncertainty.

Oracle’s decision to eliminate thousands of jobs underscores a reality increasingly common across Silicon Valley: the drive to reallocate resources toward artificial intelligence and cloud computing often comes at the expense of established teams and long-standing roles.

While investors may see these cuts as evidence of efficiency, for workers the impact is immediate and lasting.

As Oracle and Salesforce both restructure to embrace an AI-driven future, the layoffs serve as a stark reminder of how disruptive technological shifts can be not just for industries, but for the people who build them.