Author: Melanie Hollands
In late January, Oracle laid off between 10 percent and 15 percent of its applications division. The cuts hit all management levels, organization groups, and locations; some groups’ headcount was cut by as much as 30 percent. The cuts in the applications division were not performance based but were made solely to bring down operations expenses. This round of cuts only affected “Oracle Applications” people — not “PeopleSoft” or “J.D. Edwards” people. Rumor has it that 800 to 1,000 people were laid off in this round, with a target of 15 percent global layoffs hitting all groups at Oracle by the end of 2005.
In an ironic twist, many of the layoffs were delayed a week due to a series of problems with an upgrade to Oracle’s internal implementation of its human resources applications.
