Oracle Trims Staff Amid Difficult Transition to Cloud Services

Nico Grant (Bloomberg) -- Oracle Corp. will dismiss several hundred workers in May as the world’s second-largest software maker tries to rejigger its faltering cloud-computing strategy.

The database giant plans to cut 352 people on May 21, according to a notice filed last week with the state of California. The staff reductions include 255 people at its Redwood City, California, headquarters and 97 people in Santa Clara, California.

While the announced cutbacks represent a small number of people for a company with 137,000 employees as of May 31, they include people who worked in Oracle’s infrastructure cloud units that were meant to help spur growth, according to news reports. Business Insider reported last week that the company also had eliminated an unspecified number of jobs outside of California over the past week. The software maker has struggled to increase revenue amid a transition to internet-based programs and services.

“As our cloud business grows, we will continually balance our resources and restructure our development group to help ensure we have the right people delivering the best cloud products to our customers around the world,” Oracle spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger said in a statement.