Oracle looks to save $1bn with workforce cuts

Oracle logo on the side of a building
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Oracle has reportedly begun cutting jobs within its marketing and customer experience divisions as it looks to reduce its analytics and advertising operations.

On Monday some employees had already been told their position had been eliminated, according to Bloomberg sources.

The cuts included junior sales staff and directors of sales divisions, according to the sources, which also suggested that rumours of the pending layoffs had been circulating throughout the business for months. Although this was previously dismissed by management, according to the sources.

Similarly, the customer experience division, which provides analytics and advertising, is being reorganised with senior sales managers being moved on. Much of this has been reported on LinkedIn by the employees themselves.

The reasons behind the cuts are thought to be related to the division's poor performance. Its growth has reportedly lagged behind the rest of the company's services and during an event last year, executive VP Douglas Kehring said the unit had "historically been probably a little more disappointing than it should have been."

Senior management believes the cuts will help the company to make a saving of around $1 billion by eliminating thousands of roles. These layoffs will disproportionately impact workers in the US and Europe with more seen in the former.

Oracle didn't respond to requests for comment, though the reports of the jobs cuts have come amid an economic downturn that is seemingly affecting the whole technology industry. Both Google and Microsoft have confirmed they are either slowing the pace or halting recruitment plans, while smaller tech companies, such as Klarna have had to cut staff.

Job cuts at Oracle have also come as the cloud giant looks to boost its capabilities within the health care sector. The firm completed a $28.3 billion purchase of digital medical records provider Cerner, earlier in the year. The acquisition would allow Oracle to enter an industry that's seemingly ripe for digital transformation.

Bobby Hellard

Bobby Hellard is ITPro's Reviews Editor and has worked on CloudPro and ChannelPro since 2018. In his time at ITPro, Bobby has covered stories for all the major technology companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook, and regularly attends industry-leading events such as AWS Re:Invent and Google Cloud Next.

Bobby mainly covers hardware reviews, but you will also recognize him as the face of many of our video reviews of laptops and smartphones.