Oracle cuts jobs in India as Legacy Tech Firms Pivot to AI Enterprise tech firms are scrambling to pivot to AI and cut costs. This, however, has led to multiple rounds of layoffs across all regions, including India

Conventional IT and enterprise tech firms are feeling the heat of AI. At least, their workforce is.

Oracle has reportedly laid off more than 100 employees in India. These layoffs are driven by increased spending on AI as well as part of cost-cutting measures. According to reports, members from several teams, including the cloud vertical, were affected.

This is not the first time Oracle has conducted layoffs. In August, a significant wave of layoffs began after a short spell of firings earlier this year. Last month, the company let go of some staff in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) unit, including in Seattle and California regions. Other geographies were also reportedly affected in the coming days.

The above-mentioned job cuts are linked to Oracle's push toward building an AI infrastructure. One of the most talked-about projects is "Stargate," where the company has teamed up with OpenAI. The project is said to have caused the realignment of resources and workforce streamlining.

A lot of employees are now concerned about their future, an Oracle employee told Entrepreneur India on condition of anonymity. "However, many had already predicted that the company was going to lay off people, considering the previous rounds of layoffs," the person added.

While not very India-specific, a lot of Oracle employees have posted on LinkedIn about getting laid off by the company. Unconfirmed posts on the platform claim that members across cloud, marketing, engineering, and Ops were affected. The company also allegedly let go of senior employees who were there for multiple years.

Financial Express reports that employees were informed about their termination over a Zoom call, though the call was intended to be a "business update." It further says that the number of affected employees could be much higher.

Entrepreneur India has reached out to Oracle for more details. We will update the story as soon as we hear from them.

Not just Oracle

One of the biggest shockers came from Tata Consultancy Services, as the firm announced plans to cut nearly 12,000 employees, which represented just 2% of its global workforce. TCS cited the move as part of its efforts to become a "future-ready organization," with a special emphasis on AI and cybersecurity.

Global tech giant Microsoft has conducted several rounds of job cuts this year. According to reports, more than 15,000 employees have been let go by the company. Layoffs have reportedly affected firms like LinkedIn and Xbox, among other verticals.

Interestingly, CEO Satya Nadella said something to the effect of restructuring the workforce. Microsoft is also among the top firms to aggressively gain an edge in the AI space.

Google, too, has been making efforts to become an "AI-first" company. This, however, has involved multiple rounds of layoffs throughout this year. It has reduced its workforce across verticals, including research, ads, engineering, and search, among others.

Recently, Salesforce conducted major job cuts in its customer support division as it is moving toward an AI-driven platform, namely Agentforce. CEO Marc Benioff disclosed that a significant amount of customer interactions is now handled by the AI and that it has helped reduce the team by nearly half from 9,000.

Shift to AI, job cuts, and India

Shift to AI remains the common thread between the large and small job cuts at these large IT firms. And clearly, AI has begun taking away jobs, something industry pundits have already predicted.

It's worth highlighting that all these tech firms have a sizable presence in India. The larger workforce across verticals at relatively lower pay has helped these companies grow exponentially. The AI pivot, however, may see a lot of reduction in the workforce in the country.

Futurense founder and CEO Raghav Gupta has a more critical outlook on the Indian IT story and is not surprised at the job cuts due to AI.

"…the fact that we had people in large numbers, and a simple cost arbitrage of a person working in India versus abroad. Most of those jobs were not knowledge-based, and they are naturally the first to get displaced as AI takes over. The game is now shifting to knowledge work, and we are already seeing new demand in areas like data science, machine learning, cloud, and advanced analytics…," he said.

Dipal Dutta, founder and CEO of the UK-based IT firm Redoq, explains that if you don't learn how to use AI to make your job better, AI will learn how to do your job better than you.

Dutta further said that the current wave of restructuring in IT is not just about job cuts; it's about the shift towards automation and smarter tools. Roles based on repetitive tasks are being replaced, and the real challenge is adapting fast.

This is definitely a wake-up call for the Indian workforce, which is gearing up to take on the AI challenge. The road to realigning the workforce according to modern needs goes through the fundamentals, which is rebuilding scale in knowledge work just as India once did in labor-driven IT services.

Gupta adds that India is already a frontrunner in emerging roles like data engineering, cloud architecture, AI deployment, and cybersecurity, and these are bound to grow at scale. So the truth is, India may be both the worst impacted and the most benefited. If displacement happens at scale, the opportunity will also come at scale, and India has the depth of talent to capture that upside.

There might be a glimmer of hope for the Indian workforce in the coming months. According to ManpowerGroup's latest Employment Outlook Survey, 43% of employers who plan to hire

reported that their company is expanding in size, creating more positions. Nearly 55% of employers anticipate an increase in hiring, while the Energy & Utilities industry reported the brightest outlook, followed by the financial, real estate, and IT sectors.

"Although India's employment outlook has eased slightly this quarter, the fundamentals of our labor market remain strong with sectors such as Energy & Utilities, Financials & Real Estate, and Technology continuing to drive hiring, underscoring the country's structural growth momentum. A key trend emerging from MEOS Q4 is the increasing reliance on workforce flexibility, with employers balancing permanent, temporary, and consultant talent to stay agile in a dynamic environment. As businesses manage wage pressures, technological shifts, and evolving employee expectations, adaptive workforce strategies will be central to sustaining India's long-term competitiveness," says Sandeep Gulati, Managing Director, ManpowerGroup India and Middle East, in the survey.