Oracle seeks $1b savings, staff prepare for layoffs

Operating profit crashed 28% in Big Red's fiscal 2022

Oracle executives are reportedly eyeing up a $1 billion cost reduction program that includes revamping the organization and making thousands of employees redundant.

According to The Information, the layoffs may "disproportionately impact" workers in the US and Europe in business areas such as marketing for software applications in customer service and e-commerce. Ad tech was also mentioned by sources as being in the firing line.

The move is expected to be accompanied by the departure of Juergen Lindner, senior vice president of marketing for SaaS. His unit is on the list for potential reorganization and job cuts. It was also suggested that CMO Ariel Kelman may leave. He joined from AWS in 2020 and led the team working with TikTok.

Comments posted anonymously on The LayOff talked of Oracle possibly "stealing from IBM's handbook" by swapping out some of the older guard for a workforce that is younger and perhaps cheaper.

"Looks like Oracle is busy working to improve 'shareholder value'", said another post. One more claimed: "If you're in CX or OA: get out now before you have to do a sad layoff post on LinkedIn. This is it, folks…"

The Register has asked Oracle to comment.

Talk of cost cutting at Oracle follows a 5 percent hike in fiscal 2022 revenues for the year ended 31 May to $42.44 billion but an operating income of $10.926 billion that was down 28 percent year-on-year.

Oracle, however, clearly has money to spend on acquisitions, and its latest conquest was in June of electronic health records specialist Cerner – a company with around 28,000 staff that cost $28.3 billion to buy.

Larry Ellison, Oracle founder and CTO has boasted of grand plans for health tech in the US. In June, he offered up the ambition to build a centralized database of medical records in the US to mitigate the problem of transferring important medical histories between healthcare centers when people travel.

"Together, Cerner and Oracle have all the technology required to build a revolutionary new health management information system in the cloud," said Ellison. "That system will deliver much better information to healthcare professionals. Better information will fundamentally transform healthcare."

Oracle, Ellison claimed, hoped to replace HR systems in US hospitals to make staffing more efficient. It sounds - judging by talks of job cuts - like Oracle feels it also needs to get its own house in order. ®