Tech layoffs: India once again in the crosshairs, with 1 in 3 laid off by Oracle based here

Thousands of Oracle employees in India found termination emails on their phones at 6 AM on Tuesday. There was no prior meeting, no call with human resources, just a message saying their roles had been eliminated, effective immediately. "...a decision has been taken to streamline the operations, and as a result, unfortunately, the position you currently hold will become redundant," the email read.

That marked one of the sharpest single-day hits India's tech workforce has seen. ET reported on Thursday that approximately 10,000 Oracle employees in India were let go as part of the company's global elimination of 30,000 jobs, nearly one-fifth of its 162,000-strong workforce. Sources told us that another round of cuts is already planned within the month.

The latest layoffs are part of a pattern seen across the Indian tech industry since the artificial intelligence (AI)-induced rightsizing wave commenced almost two years ago. India, which has long been the world's back office and now its engineering hub, is increasingly in the crosshairs when global tech companies need to cut large numbers quickly.


Why did Oracle choose India?

India hosts one of Oracle's largest employee bases outside the United States, with about 50,000 employees. When a need arose to restructure globally, India's concentrated workforce made it an unavoidable target.

The main roles impacted are customer support, operations, cloud services, and product management, the layers that Oracle and other such tech giants built during the boom years of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) expansion. Those roles are now getting automated.

There may also be a legal angle. According to legal experts, India's labour laws offer multinational tech companies considerably more operational flexibility compared to the EU or UK. In the EU, mass layoffs require mandatory consultation periods. In the UK, there are strict collective redundancy rules. In contrast, the tech industry in India is mainly governed by individual employment contracts.

Oracle is going lean to manage its massive financial obligations. It has committed about $50 billion to AI infrastructure investment and has raised equivalent debt to fund that commitment. It is also part of the $500 billion Stargate initiative alongside OpenAI, SoftBank, and MGX.

Also Read: Oracle lays off over 100 employees in India

Years of pink slips

Over the past two years, multiple tech giants have laid off scores of employees from their India outposts.

Amazon: In January 2026, Amazon announced plans to cut approximately 16,000 corporate roles globally, as part of its plans to lay off about 30,000 workers. ET reported that about 500 employees in India received notifications as part of the reduction.

Microsoft: The tech giant cut multiple jobs through 2025, laying off 15,000 employees globally, approximately 4% of its workforce of 220,000. The impact was felt in its India offices, where Microsoft has approximately 20,000 people.

Intel: The Lip-Bu Tan-led company slashed its headcount in 2025, and the impact was felt in India as well where the company has a sizable team.

AI-led disruption

Other tech and software majors Meta, have laid off thousands of employees as part of their cost-cutting efforts to compensate for their increasing AI infrastructure investment.

Through 2025, Google conducted multiple rounds of cuts across its Platforms and Devices division, including teams working on Android, Pixel, and Chrome. Jack Dorsey's Block recently nearly halved its workforce. Epic Games handed out resignations to about 1,000 people.

In IT services, homegrown TCS and Infosys have also cut thousands of roles. Accenture has announced it will cut thousands of jobs as part of its plan to prioritise AI capabilities and align with changing client demand.

Most of these firms are also simultaneously posting stable or growing revenues and announcing multi-billion-dollar AI investment plans. Industry watchers say AI is not just changing what these companies build; it is changing how many people they need to build it.

Generative AI tools and agents are compressing the work of engineers, analysts, and operations staff into fewer hands and in shorter timelines.