Oracle increases job cuts amid cash crunch from AI data centers

Oracle just handed 21,000 people their walking papers, raised its restructuring bill by $700 million, and told investors to expect capital spending north of $70 billion this fiscal year. The numbers behind the restructuring On September 11, Oracle filed a regulatory update increasing the total cost of its 2026 Restructuring Plan to approximately $2.8 billion, up $700 million from the prior estimate. Oracle entered fiscal 2026 with roughly 162,000 employees and exited with 141,000, a reduction of approximately 21,000 positions, or about 13% of its global headcount. The company’s own annual filing cited AI adoption as a primary driver of those cuts, and flagged the possibility of further reductions ahead. Restructuring expenses for fiscal 2026 landed between $1.8 billion and $1.84 billion, compared to $374 million the year before. The cuts were not distributed evenly across the company. Oracle Health, legacy software-as-a-service divisions, and revenue teams absorbed the bulk of the reductions. Cloud and AI roles, by contrast, were largely left intact. Capital expenditures and the free cash flow problem Oracle’s capex surged 162% to $55.7 billion in fiscal 2026, almost entirely drive...