It sounded, at first, like a cruel, early April Fool’s joke. But in reality, tech giant Oracle reportedly emailed workers at 6 a.m. on March 31 to deliver digital pink slips (1).

“We are sharing some difficult news regarding your position,” the email sent to staff, and reviewed by Business Insider, said. “After careful consideration of Oracle's current business needs, we have made the decision to eliminate your role as part of a broader organizational change. As a result, today is your last working day” (2).

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It’s unclear exactly how many employees lost their jobs, with reports ranging from 10,000 (3) to 30,000 (4). The latter would represent almost 19% of the company’s 162,000 workers (5). Moneywise reached out to Oracle for clarification about the number of job cuts, and the reasons behind them, but was told that “Oracle declines comment.”

One of the laid off employees, Nina Lewis, who served as a security alert manager, posted on LinkedIn after receiving the notice, writing, “after 34 (33 of them great) years at Oracle, I join the 30,000 or so laid off today. Quite a shock.” She added that “It seems layoffs follow an algorithm of high level individual contributors and mid-level managers - especially those with outstanding stock options” (6).

The layoffs came after Oracle — which was co-founded by billionaire Larry Ellison, who also serves as its executive chairman — posted a 95% net income increase last quarter, to the tune of just over $6 billion (7). The company’s stock, however, closed at $147.11 the day of the layoffs (8) — about a 55% fall from its all-time highest closing last September at $326.90.

Oracle is, as Bloomberg noted (9), attempting to manage “a cash crunch from a massive AI data center expansion effort” in its pivot to compete with Amazon and power AI infrastructure for companies like OpenAI — with which it signed a $300 billion agreement last year (10). It’s also been reported that Oracle’s borrowing costs have doubled (4) as banks back off of financing the data center expansion, while a TD Cowen analysis found that cutting 20,000 to 30,000 jobs could save the company up to $10 billion (11).

Workers in many industries have long feared the idea that AI would come for their jobs. In fact, a March Quinnipiac University Poll showed that 30% of all employed Americans worry that AI will render their employment obsolete (12).

And their fears aren’t unfounded. A 2025 MIT study found that 11.7% of the labor market — including “finance, healthcare, and professional services” — could be replaced by AI (13).

In Big Tech, however, those fears are being realized at a rapid pace and are often linked to AI expansion. Tracker websites like Layoffs.fyi and Trueup put Big Tech job cuts so far this year at anywhere between 41,000 and 85,000 — the latter amounting to nearly 1,000 layoffs a day.

Oracle’s cuts came shortly after CEO Mike Sicilia praised AI coding tools “enabling smaller engineering teams to deliver more complete solutions” (14).

Amazon, meanwhile, laid off 16,000 corporate workers in January — which followed the 14,000 jobs it cut last October (15) — after CEO Andy Jassy admitted in a memo to staff that AI “will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains" (16).

In addition, Dell cut 11,000 jobs as of the end of January, which some attributed to eventual AI modernization (17), while Block Inc. linked its more than 4,000 February cuts to AI (18). Meta’s AI focus is said to be behind its decision to lay off roughly 700 employees in March (19), as Atlassian laid off 1,600 employees that same month, ahead of further AI investments (20).

And last year, Microsoft laid off at least 15,000 employees amidst speculation of a shift toward more AI automation and tools (21).

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As Oracle employees learned, layoffs can come fast and without warning. If you find yourself laid off unexpectedly, here are four things to do before walking out the door for good.

1. Get organized: Attorney Arick Fudali told CNBC that the first thing to do is make copies of your layoff notice and any other termination communications before losing access to your work accounts (22). He also advised against signing any severance agreement until you can read through it thoroughly and consult the company’s HR policy and any state or federal laws. If you feel like you’re the victim of an unlawful termination, consider contacting an employment lawyer.

2. Keep it professional: Just because you were laid off doesn’t mean it’s time to start burning bridges. It’s good to maintain work contacts, both for your own career and in the event that there’s an issue related to your termination and you need to contact the company to work it out.

3. Get what you’re owed: In addition to severance, be sure that you know what you’re owed in terms of final paycheques and pending benefits payments. And if you have a 401(k), you’ll have to decide if you want to leave it with your old employer or simply move it into an IRA.

4. Ask for references: Before you’re out the door, ask any relevant co-workers or supervisors for references that you can use in your upcoming job search. Even though you lost that job, you never know when a glowing review from an ex-colleague might help you land the next one.

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We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.

New York Post (1); Business Insider (2); BBC (3); Forbes (4); Oracle (5); LinkedIn (6); CIO (7); Macrotrends (8); Bloomberg (9); Wall Street Journal (10); CIO (11); Quinnipiac University Poll (12); MIT (13); Investing.com (14); CNBC (15); Business Insider (16); Business Insider (17); Wall Street Journal (18); New York Times (19); The Guardian (20); Fortune (21); CNBC (22)

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