UNITED STATES: Some tenured Oracle staff and their families are questioning corporate loyalty after the tech company laid off about 30,000 employees through a cold 6 a.m. email on Tuesday (April 1). Many spoke out online as they woke to the message telling them it was their last day, exposing the “human cost” of the company’s ramped-up spending on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.
Stories of laid-off Oracle staff and their families
Online, a daughter of an Oracle employee who had worked there for 10 years said, “My mom got her email this morning… She had worked there for 10 years, and all she got was an email.”
Another laid-off staff member, who had spent eight years there — starting straight out of university — said, “I know someone who has been there 25 years, and I can’t even imagine what they’re feeling. No corporate loyalty, it’s ruthless out here.”
On LinkedIn, the husband of a laid-off full-stack engineer, Layla Massey, who was 30 weeks pregnant, posted what he described as the “human cost behind the headlines” of the massive layoffs.
He said his wife, who had interned at the company twice, woke up locked out of every Oracle system she had access to.
“She earned her spot on that team. She went full-time and never stopped giving more than what was asked. She built products, shipped code, created content for Oracle’s own channels, mentored interns, and ran social evangelism for FreeSQL using her own audience.”
“No call. No meeting. No manager. No warning. Just an email. And a DocuSign. That’s it. That’s how they did it,” he added.
That day, LinkedIn was quickly filled with “open to work” banners as affected employees began posting that they were laid off and are open for new opportunities.
Some Oracle staff who had been with the company for at least four years, however, said they had expected the cuts.
One wrote, “Well, guys, it finally happened. The last round of Oracle layoffs took out your favourite coworker to work with… me. While I wish things had ended differently, I can’t say I’m surprised.”
Oracle layoffs and AI spending
The layoffs were reported to have affected roughly 18% of Oracle’s global workforce of about 162,000 employees, according to Rolling Out, with staff in the United States, India, and other regions receiving the same termination email.
In a screenshot of the email circulating online, it reads: “After careful consideration of Oracle’s current business needs, we have made the decision to eliminate your role as part of a broader organisational change. As a result, today is your last working day.”
The said job cuts, CNBC reported, citing TD Cowen analysts as saying in January, will free up to US$10 billion in incremental free cash flow. Oracle is said to be in urgent need of cash to fund a massive buildout of AI data centres, Rolling Out reported.
Spared Oracle employees reportedly told to “stretch” themselves “a little” to meet deliverables
However, those who were spared may find themselves just as busy as those laid-off staff scrambling to submit job applications, as International Business Times reported of “spared” employees being told to “stretch” themselves “a little” in order to meet committed deliverables.
Meanwhile, a fraud operations manager shared on LinkedIn that her father, who thankfully kept his job, said it had been the hardest week.
“The silence has left a very heavy feeling across the work environment, and there’s a constant uncertainty that no one is truly in the clear. Each email now brings a wave of anxiety, and no one knows how much extra work those who weren’t laid off will have to take on,” she wrote.
Netizens, however, were loud with their disappointment. One said, “Companies used to be ashamed of having to lay people off. It used to be a sign of a failure on management’s part.”
Another wrote, “It’s always a random Tuesday morning email… I got laid off the exact same way a few months ago. Working for myself now and happier for it, but it still stings just seeing how cold these tech companies can be.”
A third added, “This is what happens when you devote your lives to corporate life. It’s a one-way avenue. What happened to ‘we’re a family’ culture? People need to start their own businesses and stop buying into this corporate cr*p.” /TISG
Read also: Thirty thousand Oracle employees laid off with a single email
