Larry Ellison's Oracle is playing both sides of the employment game in a way that's raising uncomfortable questions about the H-1B visa program. The Austin-headquartered software giant filed over 3,100 H-1B visa petitions while simultaneously conducting mass layoffs that left thousands of workers with same-day termination notices reading "today is your last working day."
Let's look at the numbers. Oracle filed 2,690 H-1B petitions for fiscal year 2025 and another 436 for FY 2026, all while showing affected employees the door. The optics couldn't be worse if they tried.
The H-1B program is supposed to fill genuine talent gaps when qualified American workers aren't available. But when you're filing thousands of visa requests while laying off existing staff, you're not filling a gap. You're making one.
The legal gray area
Here's the thing that makes this tricky from a policy perspective: what Oracle is doing likely isn't illegal. The H-1B program has rules against direct replacement, but companies have gotten very good at threading that needle. Restructure a division here, "shift priorities" there, and suddenly you need "different skill sets" that conveniently cost 30% less.
Oracle hasn't provided detailed public comment on its workforce changes and foreign worker hiring plans, which tells you everything about how defensible they think this looks to the public. When companies are proud of their hiring strategy, they talk about it. When they're not, they stay quiet and let the lawyers handle it.
One thing I learned building a startup: the visa program can be a lifeline when you genuinely need specialized talent that doesn't exist in your local market. I hired engineers on H-1Bs because they had specific expertise we couldn't find elsewhere, not because they were cheaper.
But that's not what's happening here. Oracle is a mature company with 132,000 employees. They're not a scrappy startup scrambling for scarce ML expertise. They're optimizing labor costs while the program gives them cover.
What this means for tech workers
If you're a mid-career engineer at a large enterprise software company, this should worry you. Not because foreign workers are taking your job, but because companies have figured out how to use visa programs as leverage in compensation negotiations and workforce planning.
