Oracle Lays Off 20,000–30,000 Employees on March 31

Oracle terminated an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 employees via email on March 31, 2026. " The same employee soon learned their Slack account had been deactivated and received an email stating their role was terminated immediately, TechCrunch reported. Severance offers reached laid-off employees a few days after March 31.

In exchange for signing a release waiving the right to sue, Oracle offered four weeks of pay for the first year of service plus one additional week per year of service, capped at 26 weeks. The package also included one month of COBRA insurance. The company did not accelerate vesting of soon-to-vest RSUs.

Unvested shares were forfeited on the termination date, even if granted as retention incentives or in place of salary increases tied to promotions. One long-tenured employee lost $1 million in stock that was four months from vesting, while RSUs made up about 70% of his compensation, Time reported.

Some employees discovered they did not qualify for WARN Act protections because Oracle had classified them as remote workers.

Those who did not work in states with stronger worker provisions, such as California or New York, received no two-month notice. The WARN Act requires companies conducting mass layoffs to give employees two months notice prior to letting them go and is triggered when 50 or more people are impacted at one location.

By classifying employees as remote workers, Oracle sidestepped the WARN Act’s minimum location requirements.

Some employees were unaware they had been classified as remote because they worked on a hybrid schedule near an office. Even if covered by the WARN Act, Oracle included the two-months’ WARN notice pay in its existing calculation of four weeks plus one week per year of service, according to one former employee.

At least 90 Oracle employees signed a public petition urging the company to match the severance terms of other big tech companies conducting mass layoffs.

A group of employees tried to negotiate en masse with the company, according to a letter seen by TechCrunch. Oracle declined to negotiate, according to an email also seen by TechCrunch. Meta’s severance package started at 16 weeks of base pay plus two weeks for every year of employment and covered COBRA for 18 months, according to an email published by Business Insider.

Microsoft provided accelerated stock vesting, a minimum of eight weeks’ pay, and an additional one to two weeks for every six months of service depending on rank in its voluntary retirement offers, the Seattle Times reported. Cloudflare offered lump sum severance equivalent to base pay through the end of 2026, healthcare coverage through the end of the year, and accelerated vesting of stock through August 15, 2026.

When asked about its severance terms, classifying employees as remote, and the failed attempt by employees to negotiate more, Oracle declined to comment, TechCrunch reported.