Oracle has begun another round of US layoffs, with some affected employees reporting that termination emails arrived at around 6 a.m. on Monday, 14 September. Some said they had already lost access to company systems before receiving formal notice.
The cuts are part of a broader organisational change, according to notices reviewed by Business Insider. They come as Oracle spends heavily on AI infrastructure while also pursuing cost reductions.
For employees caught in the latest round, one question stands out: how does Oracle's new severance package compare with the one reported earlier this year?
Oracle's Latest Severance Package Looks Familiar
Affected US employees are being offered four weeks of base salary plus an additional week based on their years of service, according to documents reviewed by Business Insider.
The offer appears broadly similar to Oracle's earlier US severance package.
Terms reported in March and April provided four weeks of base salary for an employee's first year at Oracle, followed by one additional week for each subsequent year of service. The calculation was based on the employee's most recent hire date.
The earlier package also imposed a 26-week maximum on total severance.
That cap is the biggest unanswered question surrounding the September package.
Business Insider reported that the latest documents do not specify a maximum payout. That does not mean Oracle has removed the 26-week ceiling. It only means the limit is not stated in the documents reviewed so far.
Oracle has not publicly clarified whether the previous cap still applies.
Earlier Plan Included Additional Conditions
The earlier severance policy also explained how partial years of service and state notice requirements affected payments.
Employees who worked at least six months of their final partial year could have that period counted as a full year for severance purposes.
Payments could also be adjusted in states where Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, notice requirements applied.
Those provisions have not been confirmed in the documents covering the September layoffs.
Oracle has also not disclosed how many employees are affected by the latest round.
The company reported approximately 141,000 full-time employees as of 31 May 2026. That was down about 21,000, or 13%, from roughly 162,000 a year earlier. The decline reflected both layoffs and employee attrition.
Workers Report Another Abrupt Exit
The latest layoffs have also drawn attention because of how quickly some departures unfolded.
Affected employees were told their positions had been eliminated as part of a broader organisational change and that the same day would be their final working day.
Some workers said federated logins stopped functioning early in the morning. Others reported losing Slack access before an email from Oracle Leadership arrived at around 6 a.m.
Those timing details come from affected workers and have not been independently confirmed by Oracle.
The process nevertheless resembles the company's earlier 2026 cuts, when employees also reported receiving early-morning termination notices and quickly losing access to internal systems.
AI Spending Raises the Financial Stakes
The layoffs come as Oracle continues a massive expansion of its AI and cloud infrastructure.
Oracle recently increased the expected cost of its fiscal 2026 restructuring plan by about $700 million, bringing the projected total to roughly $2.8 billion. The programme includes employee severance, contract termination costs and other exit expenses.
At the same time, Oracle reported $28.5 billion in capital expenditure during the first quarter of fiscal 2027. That was up from $8.5 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.
The company has maintained a fiscal 2027 capital expenditure forecast of between $90 billion and $95 billion.
Demand has also risen sharply. Oracle's remaining performance obligations reached $664 billion, while cloud infrastructure revenue jumped 121% year over year to $7.4 billion.
But the expansion continues to consume significant cash. Oracle reported negative free cash flow of about $5.4 billion for the quarter.
For employees affected by the 14 September cuts, the immediate issue is simpler. The latest severance offer appears broadly similar to the package reported earlier in 2026.
The key unanswered question is whether Oracle's previous 26-week maximum still applies.
