Is Oracle letting go 10 per cent of its Indian team? Are employees in the US and Canada also being laid off? Are most of those impacted software developers? The answer to all these questions seems to be ‘Yes’.
It is reported that the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) division in the US as well as ten per cent of its Indian workforce are being let go. While the company maintains that the job cuts are part of a restructuring exercise, media reports say that the US policy to reduce offshoring and become less liberal with the issuance of H-1B visas are the main reasons for such layoffs.
While employees in India have faced the maximum brunt, those in the US are still being informed of job cuts, and those in Canada are also bracing for the bad news. There is a likelihood of employees in other regions of the world being impacted too, although there is no official confirmation of the exact numbers.
Interestingly, Oracle has been hiring in Virginia, while many employees in Mexico have been let go.
Oracle’s India team is over 28,000 strong, while the global strength of its workforce is about 1.62 lakhs. Clearly, India has been a significant hub for the company.
Is Oracle focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) now? Speculations are rife because the company recently entered into an agreement with OpenAI. The deal will see OpenAI renting Oracle’s facilities /systems as part of the ‘Stargate’ project to process data. The project is a tie-up between Oracle and SoftBank Group that will see the investment of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure.
