Oracle’s 21,000 layoffs help drive its debt-fueled AI investments

甲骨文裁员 2.1 万人，助力其债务驱动的 AI 投资

The growing use of AI contributed to Oracle laying off 21,000 workers in a year, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Monday. In its annual regulatory filing for the fiscal year ending May 31, Oracle said it has 141,000 full-time employees. In its 2025 filing, Oracle said it had 162,000 employees. The reported 12.9 percent reduction followed March reports of mass layoffs at the database management software company. 根据周一提交给美国证券交易委员会（SEC）的文件，人工智能（AI）应用规模的扩大是甲骨文（Oracle）在一年内裁员 2.1 万人的原因之一。在截至 5 月 31 日的财年年度监管文件中，甲骨文表示目前拥有 14.1 万名全职员工，而 2025 年的文件显示其员工总数为 16.2 万人。此次 12.9% 的裁员比例，紧随今年 3 月关于这家数据库管理软件公司大规模裁员的报道之后。

“[T]he adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce,” the filing reads. However, the job cuts are also tied to large capital expenditure to build Oracle’s data center infrastructure to support AI workloads. 文件中写道：“在我们的运营中采用和部署 AI 技术已经导致，并可能继续导致我们员工人数的减少。”然而，此次裁员也与甲骨文为支持 AI 工作负载而投入的大规模数据中心基础设施资本支出有关。

“The majority of the initiatives undertaken by the 2026 Restructuring Plan were effected to implement our continued emphasis in developing, marketing, selling, and delivering our cloud-based offerings,” this week’s filing reads. Oracle plans to raise $45 billion to $50 billion in 2026 to expand its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for customers like OpenAI, xAI, AMD, Nvidia, and Meta, it said in February. About half of that funding will come through debt, with the remainder coming from equity. 本周的文件指出：“2026 年重组计划所采取的大部分举措，旨在落实我们对开发、营销、销售和交付云端产品的持续重视。”甲骨文在 2 月份曾表示，计划在 2026 年筹集 450 亿至 500 亿美元，用于为 OpenAI、xAI、AMD、英伟达（Nvidia）和 Meta 等客户扩展其甲骨文云基础设施（OCI）。其中约一半资金将通过债务筹集，其余部分则来自股权融资。

When Oracle announced this, investors had already been concerned about Oracle’s growing debt to fuel its AI efforts. Overall, Oracle has over $120 billion in debt, per its fiscal year 2026 earnings report. In February, bondholders sued Oracle, claiming that they lost money because Oracle hid the need to raise its debt to build its AI infrastructure, Reuters reported. Investors have also been concerned about Oracle’s reliance on OpenAI, a customer that is not yet profitable and is reportedly losing billions of dollars a year. 当甲骨文宣布这一计划时，投资者已经对其为推动 AI 业务而不断增加的债务感到担忧。根据 2026 财年财报，甲骨文的总债务已超过 1200 亿美元。据路透社报道，今年 2 月，债券持有人起诉甲骨文，声称由于甲骨文隐瞒了为建设 AI 基础设施而举债的必要性，导致他们蒙受了损失。投资者还对甲骨文过度依赖 OpenAI 表示担忧，因为该客户目前尚未盈利，据报道每年亏损数十亿美元。

Analysts noted that Oracle’s workforce reduction will help the company’s cash flow. In March, Barclays said that Oracle makes less profit per employee than its rivals, CNBC reported at the time. In its SEC filing, Oracle said it spent $1.8 billion on restructuring costs in its fiscal year, which is a 481 percent increase from the prior fiscal year’s $374 million. 分析师指出，甲骨文的裁员将有助于改善公司现金流。据 CNBC 当时报道，巴克莱银行（Barclays）在 3 月份曾表示，甲骨文的人均利润低于其竞争对手。在提交给 SEC 的文件中，甲骨文表示本财年支出了 18 亿美元的重组费用，较上一财年的 3.74 亿美元增长了 481%。

Oracle also noted the drawbacks frequently associated with mass layoffs, including the potential for “reduced productivity” and “shortages of sufficiently skilled employees in certain roles, loss of valuable institutional knowledge, and damage to employee morale and retention.” 甲骨文还提到了大规模裁员通常带来的弊端，包括可能导致“生产力下降”、“特定岗位缺乏足够技能的员工”、“宝贵的机构知识流失”以及“损害员工士气和留任率”。

“As our cloud and AI businesses grow, we will continually balance our resources and restructure our development group to help ensure we have the right people delivering the best cloud and AI products to our customers around the world,” Oracle said in a statement to CNBC. 甲骨文在给 CNBC 的一份声明中表示：“随着我们的云业务和 AI 业务的发展，我们将持续平衡资源并重组开发团队，以确保我们拥有合适的人才，为全球客户提供最优质的云和 AI 产品。”

While generative AI has reignited concerns about AI taking over jobs, Oracle demonstrates one way AI can contribute to job losses beyond direct human replacements. That said, AI is increasingly common for companies to cite when letting workers go. 尽管生成式 AI 再次引发了人们对 AI 取代工作的担忧，但甲骨文展示了 AI 除了直接替代人类工作外，导致失业的另一种方式。话虽如此，企业在裁员时将 AI 作为理由的情况正变得越来越普遍。

“AI is now the leading reason companies give for cutting jobs, and the primary industry citing it is technology,” Andy Challenger, CRO at outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a May 2026 report released in June. “Technology, already the year’s biggest job cutter, saw its steepest cuts since early 2023, even as it remains the sector with the most hiring plans this year.” The outplacement firm reported in January that AI had been cited for 71,825 “job cut announcements” from 2023 to 2025. 职业安置公司 Challenger, Gray & Christmas 的首席营收官 Andy Challenger 在 6 月发布的 2026 年 5 月报告中表示：“AI 现在是企业裁员的首要理由，而引用该理由最多的行业是科技业。科技行业不仅是今年裁员规模最大的行业，其裁员幅度也达到了 2023 年初以来的最高水平，尽管它同时也是今年招聘计划最多的行业。”该公司在 1 月份报告称，从 2023 年到 2025 年，已有 71,825 起“裁员公告”将 AI 列为原因。