Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) Tuesday became the latest high-tech company to buckle under the dot-com industry’s downturn saying it would cut 866 jobs.
“Based on current business conditions, at this time the Company expects to reduce our worldwide workforce by approximately 1-2 percent through normal attrition and regular business performance assessments, in line with our ongoing global e-business process improvements,” says Oracle in a company statement.
During a March 15 conference call Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, along with other top executives, said he expected things to get a bit worse before they get better.
“We’re assuming that the economy gets a little worse in Q4 than Q3,” says Ellison. “What the economy does, we’ll do.”
Oracle employs about 43,300 workers. Shares of the Redwood Shores-based software giant rose 3/16, or 2.4 percent, to $15-1/16 in mid-afternoon Nasdaq trading.
The news is all too familiar in Silicon Valley. Chip giant Intel (Nasdaq: INTL) plans to cut its work force by 5,000 and San Jose-based Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) announced plans to cut its work force by as much as 11 percent, or 5,000, of its 44,000 workers two weeks ago.
