Oracle begins cutting thousands of jobs, CNBC reports

March 31 (Reuters) - Cloud computing company Oracle ORCL.N is laying off thousands of employees, CNBC reported on Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

The company declined to comment on the job cuts, although several social media users shared details on platforms such as Reddit RDDT.N, X and anonymous workplace network Blind, triggering uncertainty and confusion among employees.

The layoffs come amid Oracle's aggressive push to ramp up spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure to better compete with rivals, such as Alphabet GOOGL.O and Amazon AMZN.O that also offer cloud services.

In a March filing, Oracle said it expects total costs associated with its fiscal 2026 restructuring plan to be as high as $2.1 billion, primarily for employee severance and other related expenses.

Shares of the company were up more than 5% in afternoon trading. They have fallen about 29% so far this year. Oracle had about 162,000 full-time employees globally as of May 2025.

More than 70 tech companies have cut around 40,480 jobs so far this year, according to tracker Layoffs.fyi, heightening fears of AI-driven disruption among workers.

Several companies that cut jobs in recent months said they would reallocate resources toward AI efforts.

Last week, Meta laid off a few hundred people across multiple teams, a source told Reuters. Earlier this month, Reuters had reported that Meta was planning sweeping layoffs that could affect 20% or more of its workforce.