Oracle Is Cutting Nearly 500 Jobs in Washington, and Seattle Is Getting Hit the Hardest
Oracle just dropped some heavy news on the Emerald City. The tech giant announced it's laying off nearly 500 employees across Washington state, with the vast majority of those cuts concentrated in downtown Seattle. We're talking 491 people losing their jobs in what the company is calling a "reduction in force and other terminations." The layoffs take effect June 1.
Seattle's Two Oracle Offices in the Crosshairs
According to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filing, both of Oracle's downtown Seattle locations are being hit hard. But here's the thing: the company says the offices themselves will stay open. This is Oracle's second major swing at its Seattle workforce in less than a year. Back in 2025, the company laid off 262 Seattle-based employees across two separate rounds in September and August. Add those to this new batch, and you're looking at a devastating pattern for the local tech scene.
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👉 Claim Your Free $10 at KalshiOracle, which is headquartered in Austin, Texas, cited its push into artificial intelligence as a driver behind the cuts. The company is doubling down on AI investment, which apparently means trimming headcount elsewhere. The timing stings especially hard because as of June 2025, Oracle was the seventh-largest tech employer in the Puget Sound region. You don't maintain that ranking if you're shedding employees like this.
The Bigger Tech Bloodbath
This isn't just an Oracle problem. According to Layoffs.fyi, nearly 41,500 tech jobs have been eliminated across the entire industry in 2026 alone, with 78 different companies making cuts. Seattle has already been through the wringer with Meta and Expedia announcing their own layoffs this year.
On the bright side for Oracle investors: the company's stock climbed more than 5% in afternoon trading after the announcement. But before you get too excited about that, know that shares remain down roughly 29% so far this year. The company employs 162,000 full-time workers globally, so while 491 people is serious, it's still a fraction of the overall operation.
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