Oracle’s layoff train rolls on: 101 in WA, 250+ in CA - with more cuts looming

Oracle on Tuesday laid off more than 100 workers in Washington State and more than 250 in California, though we're told that the database giant may be firing thousands around the world. The company has not responded to our requests to confirm the many social media reports of a broad reduction in force. The Register heard from …

[David 132]

"doesn't make much sense"

FTFA: "This all comes after reaching an all-time high stock price so it doesn't make much sense from my lens"

From the "lens" of a typical psychopathic CEO, though, it makes perfect sense - "we made $THIS_MUCH money with our current number of employees, so think how much more money we'd make if we had far fewer employees on payroll!"

Cos employees are just a cost to the bottom line and don't actually contribute anything to the revenue or play any part in earning that money, amiright?

Why, if you had zero employees, you'd make infinite money!

[DS999]

Re: "doesn't make much sense"

That's why there is so much money flooding into AI. Even if they know they won't be able to get down to zero employees, if they could cut their headcount by 10% they'd love to do it. Even if it costs more (just so long as it isn't a lot money) for the AI services it will be worth it.

Because AI is able to "work" 24x7 if needed instead of only 40 or 50 hours a week, doesn't demand raises, doesn't get sick, doesn't need vacation, doesn't need health care, doesn't take parental leave, doesn't quit and require a hiring process to replace, and can be "laid off" without any severance cost and "re-hired" whenever you want to respond to more or less work needing to be done. Its a CEO's wet dream!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "doesn't make much sense"

See Salesforce tossing 4,000 of its 9,000 support staff yesterday.

No mention of making staff more productive using AI as a tool, just cold and completely insensitive ‘because I need less heads’.

Absolutely no surprises there ….

[DS999]

Re: "doesn't make much sense"

Yeah I'm sure it is a combination of "replacement" and "enhancement". Of course the now more productive AI using employees won't see raises for their increased productivity. The CEO will say "it is because I was smart and invested in AI" so he'll get the raise while the employees will be told "raise? what raise? just be happy you weren't one of the ones we laid off".

[MachDiamond]

Re: "doesn't make much sense"

"and can be "laid off" without any severance cost and "re-hired" whenever you want to respond to more or less work needing to be done. Its a CEO's wet dream!"

To a limited extent. There's the cost of acquiring the hardware and housing it while dealing with its limited lifespan. You "can" turn bits of it off, but idling part of the installation means it earns zero. It would be better to have customers for reduced demand periods so that hardware is making some sort of return even if it's just making only enough to pay the rent on the space it takes up and its depreciation.

Since AI isn't human although being expected to serve humans, there's a disconnect. It won't have the sensitivity to what humans desire, need and will tolerate. Many political systems are perfectly logical and could serve the greatest number at the least cost, but don't take into account human nature. I would expect AI would head in that sort of direction as if we were Vulcan. At some point in the chain, companies products and services meet people. If there's not a fit, warehouses full of unsaleable merchandise occurs.

[DS999]

Re: "doesn't make much sense"

It won't have the sensitivity to what humans desire, need and will tolerate

Well good thing corporate worker bees most likely to be replaced like CSRs, HR, and IT are very sensitive to human needs and desires! Nope, no Asperger's, psychopaths or people who just don't give a damn among them. Guess they're safe after all!

[An_Old_Dog]

Looking More-Closely at an Analogy

Because AI is able to "work" 24x7 if needed instead of only 40 or 50 hours a week, doesn't demand raises, doesn't get sick, doesn't need vacation, doesn't need health care, doesn't take parental leave, doesn't quit and require a hiring process to replace, and can be "laid off" without any severance cost and "re-hired" whenever you want to respond to more or less work needing to be done.

• Doesn't get sick: computer systems fail in a variety of ways, and to be "healed"/"repaired" by professionals.

• Doesn't quit and require a hiring process to replace: upgrading a large LLM-running system to make it faster is an exercise in design analysis, mind-numbing spec comparisons, RFP-drafting, vendor proposal analysis, budgeting, etc. ...

[MachDiamond]

Re: Looking More-Closely at an Analogy

"design analysis, mind-numbing spec comparisons, RFP-drafting, vendor proposal analysis, budgeting, etc. ..."

I would guess they'd let an AI do all of that too so it would be AI all the way down (and then the digging begins).

[Gene Cash]

typical psychopathic CEO

Larry Ellison isn't your typical psychopathic CEO, he sets the bar MUCH higher than that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: typical psychopathic CEO

Larry isn’t the CEO. He’s the CTO and Chairman of the Board. The CEO is Safra Catz

[elsergiovolador]

Pooracle

Why would you work for Pooracle? I mean they say pecunia non olet... but...

[David 132]

Re: Pooracle

The punchline of the old joke comes to mind: "I tell my kids I'm a piano-player in a brothel - how could I explain the truth to them?"

[Northern Lad]

If Your Job Does't Have A Physical Element...

...your fair game to be replaced by so called 'AI'. If your life is sitting at a desk driving a keyboard all day then the management team will be looking to see how your job can be replaced by ai. If your job has a physical element, replacing Disks, building servers, desktops etc then you have some protection for the time being.

I'm waiting for that moment further down the line, and hopefully it will be in the The Register, when an big system goes down and ai tries to fix it but can't - because the knowledge was 'let go' years before.

The people who make the decisions are also keyboard warriors, and earn far more money so maybe getting rid of them first would be a good cost saving exercise.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: If Your Job Does't Have A Physical Element...

A Physical Element...

sitting at a desk driving a keyboard all day

[MachDiamond]

Re: If Your Job Does't Have A Physical Element...

" A Physical Element...

sitting at a desk driving a keyboard all day"

That's because we don't come fitted with a fiberport in the back of our heads like in the Matrix. Driving the keyboard is just the way we interface our brain with the machine. ...And twitching the mouse a bit, don't forget about that.

[Brl4n]

Re: If Your Job Does't Have A Physical Element...

We only fix symptoms (expensively) never the the source.

[Korev]

Re: If Your Job Does't Have A Physical Element...

I'm waiting for that moment further down the line, and hopefully it will be in the The Register, when an big system goes down and ai tries to fix it but can't - because the knowledge was 'let go' years before.

We already see that with outsourcing / offshoring...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh

Baldy Bezos must need a new planet to relocate to before Trump destroys this one.

[fredesmite2]

many are middle age and older . Like IBM and Dell .EMC ,

the majority of my social circle in their 60s who are retired did so after being laid off.

I retired from Oracle after 8 yrs at age 64 .. 3 yr ago.