Cloud computing giant Oracle is laying off 161 employees in Seattle, the company disclosed in a state regulatory filing Wednesday.
The Austin, Texas-based tech company is the latest to cull its workforce, as layoff waves both big and small hit corporate America this year. The announcement came the same week both cybersecurity firm F5 and telecom giant T-Mobile confirmed cuts.
Layoffs this year haven’t solely come from tech companies. Starbucks and REI cut hundreds of workers for different reasons. Starbucks laid off more than 1,000 employees in February in a push for efficiency as it looks to streamline the company amid a turnaround. REI axed its tours and events business and laid off hundreds of employees as a result.
Oracle didn’t respond to a request for comment and hasn’t announced a reason for companywide cuts reported earlier this week by trade publication Datacenter Dynamics.
But the theme behind the layoffs for companies like F5, T-Mobile, Amazon and Microsoft is a shift in priorities. Statements in response to layoffs from tech companies have described some version of shedding roles in favor of moving resources to other teams.
For Microsoft, which has laid off more than 15,000 employees since May, priorities are shifting rapidly to artificial intelligence. The company’s massive spending on infrastructure for the AI boom is putting pressure on its operating margins and Microsoft is looking at redundancies within the company to trim costs.
Amazon is similarly looking at duplicative roles and inefficiencies within the company. Amazon confirmed in July that it was laying off an undisclosed number of employees in its Amazon Web Services cloud computing division. A spokesperson said at the time the layoffs were “necessary as we continue to invest, hire, and optimize resources to deliver innovation for our customers.”
Datacenter Dynamics reported that Oracle’s cuts also hit operations in India and Canada.
Oracle has 3,900 employees in the Seattle area, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal.
The company once had a sizable footprint in Seattle and Bellevue. Oracle, formerly headquartered in Silicon Valley, ramped up its head count in Seattle just before the pandemic. Similar to other tech companies from California, Oracle planted a flag in Seattle and grew it into a meaningful engineering hub.
Oracle has shrunk its physical presence over the past few years. Last year, the company left its downtown Bellevue office. Oracle had occupied three floors in an office tower, according to city permit records. Commercial brokerage CBRE confirmed last year that Oracle decided not to renew the lease.
Oracle also shed most of its space in downtown Seattle in 2023, according to CBRE. The brokerage reported Oracle left almost 100,000 square feet of space in Seattle’s Century Square tower, near Westlake Park.