- In the wake of lacklustre third-quarter earnings, software maker Oracle said yesterday it is reducing its worldwide workforce by up to 2%, or about 866 jobs.
"Based on current business conditions, at this time the company expects to reduce our worldwide workforce by approximately 1%-2% through normal attrition and regular business performance assessments, in line with our ongoing global e-business process improvements," the company says in a statement. The company has a workforce of 43,000.
The news wasn't unexpected.
When the company announced its third-quarter financial results on March 15, CEO Larry Ellison warned that conditions would get worse before they got better and that the company would most likely cut jobs to reduce internal costs. At that time, Ellison also said he expected the economy and the company's financial picture to get worse in the fourth quarter.
"What the economy does, we'll do," he says.
But Oracle isn't the only high-tech company to cut jobs.
Earlier this month, chip maker Intel said it would cut up to 5000 jobs, networking giant Cisco Systems cut 8000 jobs and Compaq slashed its workforce by 5000.