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Employees at tech giant Oracle are facing down a fresh round of layoffs this month, the latest bad news out of an industry thats either booming or brutal, depending on whom you ask. The company has yet to publicly confirm the new cuts to its workforce, but state data shows that Oracle is reducing its Seattle-area workforce by 101 employees. The layoffs were filed with Washington state on September 2 and will go into effect by November 3. While state filings only reflect Seattle area jobs lost for now, Oracle employees in other states shared news of their jobs being cut on LinkedIn. In some instances, newly laid-off employees worked for the company for 20 years, so the round of reductions may not solely have impacted more recent hires. Oracle workers based in Kansas, Massachusetts, and Texas were among those who said their positions were eliminated as part of a workforce reduction. On anonymous message boards, some Oracle employees reported seeing the companys general Slack channel drop by around 3,500 members in the last 24 hours, but no official numbers have yet confirmed the scope of the latest round of layoffs. Some states make layoff data public through a kind of law known as a mini-WARN Act, which stands for Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification. The laws are designed to provide workers with advance notice of mass layoffs and often collect that information into state databases. California also operates a WARN database, but it did not include new Oracle layoffs at the time of writing. Fast Company reached out to Oracle to confirm the layoffs but has not received a response from the company. Multiple rounds of layoffs Oracle also cut jobs last month. In mid-August, the company notified the state that it planned to eliminate 289 positions in the Bay Area across its offices in Pleasanton, Redwood City, and Santa Clara. In the same flurry of layoffs, Oracle planned to reduce its workforce by 161 positions in the Seattle area, where the company employs around 4,000 workers. The company has been conspicuously reducing its office footprint in Seattle over the last year. Oracles employees are facing uncertainty as their employer trims its massive workforce, but the company itself is having a banner year. The enterprise hardware and software provider notched its best week since 2001 over the summer, with shares peaking at a record high above $250 last month. In its June earnings call, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison marveled at spiking demand for the companys products. Even as it pours billions into cloud and AI infrastructure, Oracle is apparently still scrambling to keep pace with its happy customers. The demand is astronomical, Ellison said. But we have to do this methodically. The reason demand continues to outstrip supply is that we can only build these data centers, build these computers, so fast.
Category:
E-Commerce
President Donald Trump’s administration is reconsidering federal approval of Avangrid’s planned New England Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts, according to a court filing on Wednesday. The legal maneuver is the latest move by U.S. authorities to stymie development of offshore wind energy, which Trump has called ugly, expensive, and unreliable. Last week, the administration also said it was reconsidering approval of SouthCoast Wind, another planned Massachusetts project. Attorneys for the Department of Justice said they would move by October 10 to vacate the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval of the New England Wind construction and operations plan. The filing came in a lawsuit brought earlier this year in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by local groups and individuals opposed to offshore wind development. The suit alleges the government violated federal environmental laws by approving the project. Avangrid, which is owned by Spanish power company Iberdrola, declined to comment. New England Wind was approved by former President Joe Biden’s administration in 2024. The project, once built, was expected to be able to produce enough electricity to power 900,000 homes. Representatives for ACK for Whales, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, could not immediately be reached for comment. By Nichola Groom and Laila Kearney, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
U.S. consumers, particularly Gen Z, are likely to spend significantly less on the holidays this year, according to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers survey. For PwC’s 2025 Holiday Outlook, the consulting firm polled about 4,000 consumers nationwide between June and July, and found shoppers expect to spend 5.3% less than in 2024, or about $1,552 per person. It’s the first notable drop since 2020when average spending fell 7.6%, to $1,187. That’s not all. Some 84% of Americans expect to cut back over the next six months, particularly when it comes to eating out (52%), clothes (36%), and big-ticket items (32%)as a result of rising prices and tariffs (especially on electronics, apparel, toys, food, and household staples)and the overall high cost of living. More than half of those surveyed said increased prices will likely affect what they decide to purchase, making value a defining theme of the 2025 holiday season. Gift spending is expected to take the biggest hit, down 11% to an average of $721, from $814 in 2024while people continue to spend on travel and entertainment, at an increase of 1%. Gen Z holiday spending expected to drop sharply PwC expects the sharpest decline in shopping to come from Gen Zers, who say they expect to reduce their holiday spending by a whopping 23%, leaving retailers to compete over fewer dollars. However, the good news for retailers is that millennials, Gen Xers, and baby boomers are expected to spend about the same as last year, possibly slightly more. What shoppers are looking for this holiday season More than a good deal, consumers are seeking value and brands they feel “get” them this holiday season. As with all forecasts, it’s worth noting this survey took place in June and July, during a period of high uncertainty over tariffs, and that purchasing behavior could always change between now and December, along with the economic climate and outlook.
Category:
E-Commerce
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