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New Delhi: Fresh claims about severance payouts for employees at Oracle India have surfaced online, even as the company remains silent on the issue. The details, which are still not confirmed, have raised a lot of debate among the workers and the industry analysts with the news of the continued layoffs all over the world.

The information originated from a post on X (formerly Twitter) by a handle claiming access to an internal draft document. Nevertheless, Oracle has not made any official confirmation.

What the leaked severance package claims

The viral post suggests that the severance payout is determined on the basis of the tenure of an employee at Oracle but rounded up to the nearest year. Employees are reported to be given a salary equivalent to one month of work every year of service and three months of extra pay.

The breakdown is said to comprise statutory compensation and goodwill. Besides that, one month of salary is allowed as notice pay to the employees, which is also in line with the general employment rates in India. It is also stated in the post that there will be a two-month ex gratia top-up, as well as other benefits like health insurance of Rs 20,000. The payment of unused leave encashment and gratuity is expected to be made separately.

One example mentioned in the post indicates that the total payout may be in the form of six months’ salary of an employee with a tenure of 2.5 years after the tenure is rounded, along with notice pay and ex gratia. These estimations are reported to be based on gross pay rates.

No official confirmation from Oracle

Oracle has never verified any of these allegations. There has also been no statement of severance structures that the company has made in India. This ambiguity has contributed to confusion among the affected workers. The company has not publicly spelt out its lay-off policies in the Indian market.

Comparison with US severance policy

Although the unique aspects of India are not evident, a report of Business Insider offers a clue about the severance system of Oracle in the United States. The report indicates that US workers can receive four weeks of basic pay during the first year of employment and an addition of one week every year, where the limit is 26 weeks.

This underscores the fact that the severance policies differ greatly by geographical area. No hint that the same can be said of India.

Global layoffs and roles impacted

The layoffs seem to be a larger-world restructuring move. It has been reported that in the US and India, employees received notifications in the early morning, and some workers immediately lost access to the system.

Michael Shepherd, who works at LinkedIn, stated in a post that several positions were impacted. These are senior engineers, architects, program managers and operations leaders. He made it a point that the layoffs were non-performance-based.

Scale of job cuts still uncertain

It is not clear the number of employees affected. It is reported that it could have reduced employment by up to 30,000 around the world. PTI estimates that approximately 12,000 Indian workers might be affected, but this number has not been verified.

PTI also reported that before the layoffs, Oracle had about 30,000 workers in India. The company does not publish official figures.

The layoffs are timed as Oracle is investing heavily in artificial intelligence. A BBC article has mentioned that the company executives have in the past pointed out the increasing efficiency and decreasing number of people required in the company due to AI tools.

It is, however, not known whether the current layoffs are directly associated with the same technological shifts.