The American software company Oracle has fired 900 staff from its China team, making up 60 per cent of its research and development effort there, according to employees, some of whom blamed tensions between the US and China for the cuts.
Oracle’s China staff were told on May 7 that the company was “optimising” its workforce and that redundancies would be made by May 22, according to eight employees at the company’s R&D centre in Beijing, Oracle’s biggest unit in China.
The announcement came as a surprise and led to protests outside Oracle’s building. The decision, which came in the same week as the US announced additional tariffs on Chinese goods, saw staff blame the trade war.