Oracle on Thursday laid off hundreds of employees, rescinded job offers, and cut back open positions within its health unit, three people familiar with the matter told Insider.
The laid-off employees will receive severance pay equal to four weeks, plus one additional week for every year of service and a payout of vacation days, two of the people said. Oracle declined comment.
Oracle Health includes health IT giant Cerner, which it acquired last year for about $28 billion. Current and former employees recently told Insider that Oracle has halted raises and promotions and laid off thousands of employees in the unit since the acquisition.
Thursday's layoffs were due in large part to Cerner's challenged work with the US Department of Veterans Affairs, which hired Cerner to replace its homemade medical records with Cerner's technology, one of the people told Insider.
Work began on the project in 2020 and has been plagued with many fits and starts. Most recently, the VA paused the rollout in April due to issues with the sites where Cerner's records have already been deployed. The VA and Cerner renegotiated their contract in May, allowing the government, per the VA, to hold Cerner more accountable.
That situation means Cerner has less government-related work to do and led to this round of cuts, the person said.
Cerner is Oracle's largest acquisition, and insiders say it has become a primary focus for chairman and CTO Larry Ellison, who has a vision for a "revolutionary" health data system in the cloud for providers and public-health officials to access patient data across organizations and believes the system will prove Oracle's cloud business to the world.
Are you an Oracle employee or do you have insight to share? Contact Ashley Stewart via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or email (astewart@insider.com). Do you have tips about Cerner or the VA rollout? Contact Blake Dodge via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 (252) 241-3117) or email (bdodge@insider.com). Please reach out using a non-work device.
