undisclosed...Oracle chops workforce as lay-offs mount
By Eric Lai and Chris Kanaracus, Computerworld (US)
Oracle made "major" cuts in its global workforce on Friday and more are expected to come, say multiple sources and news reports.
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Sales staff and consultants working for Oracle in North America were hit hard, say sources, as well as employees who had joined Oracle recently through its acquisitions of Hyperion Solutions and BEA Systems.
The number of people let go on Friday is unclear. Tim Klasell, an analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners, told Computerworld he thought the layoffs were likely to be in the hundreds or low thousands, rather than the 8,000-figure buzzing about on some blogs and message boards.
Oracle employs 84,000 people globally. An 8,000-employee layoff would amount to about 10 percent of its workforce.
Based on Oracle's history of acquisitions and layoffs, as well as money the company has already publicly said it plans to spend this year on severance, it will likely keep trimming through Spring of 2009.
"I think they're doing this in waves," Klasell said. "It's not great for morale, but you want to make sure you don't cut into the meat."
One Oracle salesperson based in the US said they were called into a meeting Friday and told the news then. More cuts are likely to come, said the salesperson, who asked to remain anonymous.
"They're going to have to. They're not going to sell any [customer relationship management software] in these times," the worker said. "BEA was very bloated and they've got to prune a lot of those people out."
According to a 22 December filing to the SEC, Oracle expects to eventually spend a total of $148 million on severance packages for laid-off employees of BEA, which it bought in January 2008.
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