Another Wave of IT Retrenchments, Oracle Laid off around 12,000 Employees in India
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Apr 1: Said to be going for a major “Artificial Intelligence” push, the IT major Oracle has in one stroke laid off about 30,000 employees globally, including about 12,000 in India with effect from Wednesday intensifying concerns in India’s tech hubs and amplifying housing-market stress that had already begun to surface in Bengaluru as IT professionals reassess big-ticket bets.
With another round of lay-off apprehended within weeks, retrenchments have come as growth in India’s IT services industry slows sharply after two decades of expansion. The company cited “organisational change” and said the roles have been eliminated with immediate effect. “Today is your last working day,” firm reportedly said in a mail sent to the sacked employees at 6 AM EST on Tuesday.
The US-based enterprise software giant has cut roughly 11,000-12,000 jobs in India — almost half of its workforce in the country — as part of a larger global restructuring exercise, even as it pours billions of dollars into AI and cloud computing investments. Oracle’s layoffs mirror a wider pattern across the global technology sector, where companies are trimming traditional roles while investing heavily in artificial intelligence.
Experts said the IT sector was entering a structural slowdown. Between 2005 and 2020, IT services firms grew revenues and headcount at around 15% annually, but that pace has dropped to about 5 to 6 percent, with hiring tapering off after Covid. “This is a sector which boomed for 20 years and is now slowing down,” they said noting that the deceleration began before AI gained traction.
For its AI push, Oracle has signed a $156 billion deal to build AI data centres over five years, largely for OpenAI. To establish these centres, the company is expected to spend aggressively to buy specialised chips for compute. As per reports, Oracle’s spending on such infrastructure is expected to reach $50 billion last year, up from $6.9 billion two years ago. And layoffs may free up funds for such investments.
According to investment sources, the layoffs could help Oracle save between $8 billion and $10 billion in cash flow which could be used for AI push. Oracle employed around 162,000 full-time staff globally as of May 2025. The layoffs have reportedly impacted divisions including Oracle Health, Sales, Cloud, Customer Success, and NetSuite. There are also rumours that Oracle may announce another round of layoffs soon. This could further help balance the company’s finances as it is reportedly carrying a debt of around over $108 billion.
Artificial intelligence is now compounding the shift. A 2025 report by NITI Aayog estimates that up to 20% of jobs in IT services and call centres could be impacted by automation by 2031. The first visible spill over is emerging in Bengaluru’s property market.
Tech professionals are beginning to reassess large housing commitments. Some have deferred high-value purchases, while others are opting for lower-cost homes to limit financial exposure, said real estate experts. The shift follows a period of rapid price growth between 2021 and 2023 and signals a change in buying behaviour rather than a collapse in demand.
The linkage is direct. IT incomes have historically driven housing demand across Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and NCR. A prolonged hiring slowdown or continued layoffs could weaken absorption and add pressure on existing inventory. “The problem in an environment of layoffs is that it has a twin impact on housing. Fired employees struggle to service their payments and other employees feel they may be next. So they pause on their purchase,” some wrote real estate consultants said.
Financial markets are already reflecting the transition. The Nifty IT index has declined around 25% in 2026 so far, as investors recalibrate growth expectations. ICICI Direct in a note said the sector is entering a “deflationary phase” where automation reduces human effort, compressing revenues linked to billable hours. It estimates 2 to 3 percent annual revenue deflation in the near term, with nearly 30% of the industry exposed.
In a downside scenario, up to $80 billion of Indian IT revenue could be at risk. However, the longer-term outlook remains tied to adaptation. The same report suggests AI-led services could expand the total addressable market by $300 to $400 billion by 2030. For now, the signals are converging. Layoffs, slower hiring and shifts in consumer behaviour are beginning to align.
Some reports specifically flags Indian IT majors such as TCS, Infosys, and Wipro as being particularly vulnerable, arguing that their traditional business models could be severely disrupted by AI-powered automation. According to the report, by 2028 India’s IT services industry, which had been exporting more than $200 billion annually, could face a dramatic slowdown as global clients increasingly shift to AI coding agents available at significantly lower costs.
“The entire model was built on one value proposition: Indian developers cost a fraction of their American counterparts. But the marginal cost of an AI coding agent had collapsed to, essentially, the cost of electricity,” report stated. It further warned that as services exports weaken, the rupee could depreciate sharply against the dollar within a span of four months.
While Oracle has not revealed the exact severance package – or even the number of employees who have lost their jobs – publicly, laid-off staff is taking to social media and other forums to share some of these presumably intimate details with the rest of the world. According to some retrenched employees, the company has offered, “15 days per year + annual leave + (ex gratia – additional 15 days per year + 2 months) + 1 month garden leave or in lieu salary + 20k for insurance, which in effect would mean a total payout of 3 months and 15 days salary, plus the unused vacation days and the 15-day sums based on their respective tenure. The packages could vary depending on the type of role and hierarchy, though Oracle hasn’t given out these details yet.
In January 2026, Amazon had fired 16,000 employees from its global workforce, including India. As per impacted employees, the company was offering a severance package that included full pay and benefits for 90 days.
