Revoked Slack, 4-6am emails: Oracle’s second layoff round hits India

Bengaluru: Oracle employees have come to dread the 4am-to-6am emails and revoked Slack access.A viral Reddit post capturing the anxiety around the tech giant’s latest global layoffs simply read, “Time of death: 4 A.M. Lol.” The employee said being logged out of Slack effectively confirmed the layoff.Employees who checked Slack saw the number of active users fall to 144,638 on Tuesday around 9pm IST from 149,900 a day earlier, suggesting that more than 5,000 employees globally may have lost access over two days, sources told TOI.Employees, including those in India, have been bracing for termination emails arriving in the early hours as the latest round of cuts gets underway.Oracle began a fresh round of layoffs in India on Monday, affecting several mid- to senior-level employees in web development and maintenance, people familiar with the matter said. Some sources estimated that 1,000-1,500 employees in India could be affected, though TOI could not independently verify the figure. An email sent to Oracle did not receive a response before this article went to press. TOI also could not independently verify the number of layoffs within Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) in India.Earlier this year, TOI reported that an estimated 10,000-12,000 employees in India, out of its workforce of over 40,000, were affected in the first leg of the layoffs.An email to an affected India employee said the company was streamlining operations following organisational changes and that the employee’s position had become redundant.“Owing to certain ongoing organizational changes that are taking place in the company and after careful consideration of our current business needs, a decision has been taken to streamline operations. As a result, unfortunately the position you currently hold has become redundant. We want to assure you that this decision has been taken after thoughtful deliberation and has become inevitable in light of the need to restructure the business,” the note said.Affected employees are eligible for a severance package; HR will provide separation documents, package details, and other information on the next steps by email. They are also being relieved of their duties and placed on garden leave until their last date of employment, according to the communication.The severance package includes one month’s pay for every completed year of service, plus two additional months’ pay, according to sources.A junior developer who was among those affected wrote on Reddit that, while relieved not to have significant EMIs or loans, he had no backup plan. Being early in his career, the sudden job loss left him uncertain about what lay ahead.In fiscal 2026, Oracle cut 21,000 jobs globally and incurred $1.8 billion in severance costs, according to the company’s disclosures.Get the latest Business News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.