Oracle denies China layoffs linked to Trump

US tech-giant Oracle has axed 200 employees in China as part of its efforts to restructure business operations but refuted reports that the move was linked to US President-elect Donald Trump's pledges to create jobs at home.
"As the global market for Oracle's Solaris [operating system] shrinks, the company is now refocusing on cloud services to better adapt to changes," Li Yingyan, the public relations manager at Oracle's Beijing office, told state-run Global Times.
On Friday night, Oracle sent an e-mail to roughly 200 employees of its storage and operating system unit in Beijing, asking them to leave before March 31, according to sources close to the matter.

The e-mail did not provide details on compensation.
"Oracle is refocusing more R&D efforts on cloud computing. Some product teams in some markets will be eliminated," according to the e-mail, which was signed by Bill Nesheim, vice-president of Solaris Platform Engineering.
However, most of the laid-off employees didn't buy the explanation.

An employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described the move as "a cut-off to retain job opportunities for the people in the US."
"The Solaris unit may have posted a lower-than-expected performance last year, but the storage group is making lucrative revenues. Oracle does need IT staff to continue offering its storage service, so most of our jobs will be transferred to US engineers," the employees told the paper.

However, Li said the layoffs are part of the company's global plan to trim its workforce.
"We are cutting employees globally, including in the US," she said.
"Meanwhile, we have still hired more than 5,000 people in China, and the employees being eliminated this time are actually fewer than 200, most of whom do not have expertise in cloud computing."
Li also noted that to further develop its cloud business, Oracle is now recruiting in China.
"We will scale up our investment and marketing efforts in China," he said.
In December, Silicon Valley executives had met with Trump in New York.

The co-CEO of Oracle, Safra Catz, later joined Trumps' transition team.