Oracle Is Hiring in Asia-Pacific Region Amid Tech Sector Layoffs
Oracle Continues Strategies to Conquer the Cloud Space in 1H15 (Part 12 of 17)
Oracle announced addition to its sales staff in Asia Pacific region
On March 26, 2015, Oracle (ORCL) announced that it will expand its workforce by 1,000 people in the Asia-Pacific region. Out of this 1,000, Oracle plans to hire 300 in India. This news comes as a surprise, because many technology and software players have recently resorted to layoffs to reduce their costs. 2014 saw leading technology players Microsoft (MSFT), IBM, SAP AG (SAP), and HP (HPQ), announce layoffs as a way to keep costs in check.
Oracle aims to capitalize on the still nascent cloud computing market in the Asia Pacific region that is expected to take off with the economic expansion and proliferation of increased Internet penetration, broadband, and mobile infrastructure.
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The above presentation shows the historic numbers of US tech job cuts as reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employment consulting firm. Here, the technology sector encompasses computer, electronics, and telecom. The 100,757 layoff announcements in 2014 were significant as compared to 56,198 in 2013. Looking broadly at the tech space, layoffs increased by almost 80% last year. In 2014, the technology sector accounted for one out of five layoff announcements.
Asia Pacific region registered lowest growth in 3Q15
As we have seen in its 3Q15 earnings review, Oracle’s Asia Pacific segment currently contributes only ~15% of Oracle’s overall revenues, compared to the Americas with 55% revenue share. The EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) segment contributes 30% towards overall revenues. For the nine months ended February 28, 2015, revenues from the Asia Pacific region grew by just 2% on a constant currency (or CC) basis. Thus, the Asia-Pacific segment saw the least growth among Oracle’s three regions (Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific). Oracle expects that with the strategic expansion of the sales team in the Asia Pacific region, revenue from this region will increase in the future.
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