Oracle has begun a second wave of layoffs this year, with employees across the United States receiving abrupt termination notices from "Oracle Leadership" early on September 14. The timing and method mirrored the first major round of cuts in March, which drew widespread criticism for the cold efficiency with which departing staff were locked out of their work accounts.
According to reports from affected employees, Oracle began disabling system logins around 4:00 am, followed by the removal of Slack messaging access by 5:30 am. Staff received their termination emails just after 6:00 am — a pattern that has become known informally as the "6am job cuts." The coordinated shutdown left many workers with virtually no time to retrieve personal files or communicate with colleagues before being cut off.
Slack usage data tracked by one monitoring service showed an immediate drop of between 3,000 and 4,000 active users following the notifications, indicating a significant number of employees were let go in a single morning. The cuts reportedly span multiple business units within Oracle, including Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Fusion applications, NetSuite, Oracle Health, and operations at the company's Abilene, Texas campus known internally as the Stargate site.
The layoffs come amid a broader restructuring effort by Oracle's management, which is seeking to streamline operations and redirect investment toward cloud computing and artificial intelligence products. Industry analysts estimate the total cost of this round of restructuring for Oracle stands at approximately $2.8 billion, covering severance packages, facility closures, and other related expenses.
While the September cuts have so far been concentrated in the US, employees at Oracle's Development Centre in India are bracing for similar action. Internal communications and industry sources suggest the Indian facility, which handles substantial portions of the company's software development and support operations, is next in line for workforce reductions. Union representatives and tech-worker advocacy groups in India have expressed concern that employees may face the same abrupt treatment without adequate notice or transition support.
This marks the second major layoff event at Oracle in less than six months. The first wave in March prompted internal complaints and external scrutiny over the speed and manner of the terminations. Oracle has not released a detailed public statement explaining the rationale for the September cuts beyond its general restructuring narrative.
