Oracle's decision to cut around 20,000 jobs worldwide on 31 March has triggered a wave of anger from former staff, who say the company denied them stock awards worth up to $1 million (around £730,000) and offered bare‑bones severance as it doubles down on costly AI infrastructure projects.
The mass layoff, communicated via company‑wide emails sent under the banner 'Oracle Leadership,' hit employees across the US, India and other international hubs as part of a sweeping restructuring.
According to accounts given to TechCrunch and The Times of India, termination notices began landing as early as 6am Eastern time, informing staff their roles had been eliminated with immediate effect. Many only realised they had lost their jobs when their access to Oracle systems abruptly stopped working.
One former employee told TechCrunch they only discovered they had been dismissed when they tried to log in remotely. They said, 'I went to sign into the VPN, and it said, 'this user doesn't exist anymore.'
Then I called my friend, and she said, 'No, your account's been deactivated.' It is hardly an unusual story in modern tech layoffs, but it has become a rallying point for a workforce that, by design, had much of its pay tied up in future stock.
The sharpest grievance centres not on salary, but on equity that never had a chance to vest. TechCrunch reported that one long‑serving Oracle employee lost nearly $1 million (around £730,000) in restricted stock units (RSUs) that were only months away from vesting.
That sort of figure is the extreme end, but it captures why the fallout from the Oracle layoffs has been so intense.
RSUs have become a core part of technology pay, particularly for senior and long‑tenured staff. In boom times, they are pitched as a route to long‑term shared success. In downturns, or when a company is reshaping itself around a new priority such as AI, they can vanish overnight if vesting conditions are not met.
Former Oracle staff say that unlike some rivals, the company did not accelerate vesting for RSUs that were close to maturing. Reports highlight that firms such asMeta, Microsoft and Cloudflare have, in previous rounds of cuts, offered more generous treatment of unvested equity and extended healthcare support. In that context, Oracle's decision looks notably austere.
The company's standard severance package has become a second flashpoint. According to multiple accounts, Oracle offered roughly four weeks' pay for the first year of service, plus one additional week per year thereafter, capped at 26 weeks.
Source: International Business Times UK
