78K Tech Layoffs, 47% AI-Blamed: Is Data Engineering Safe?

I woke up on March 31st to a Slack message from a former colleague at Oracle. Six words: "Got the email. 6am. It's done." Thirty thousand people, notified by email before sunrise. Not because Oracle was struggling; the company had just posted a 95% net income jump to $6.13B. They cut 18% of their workforce to fund data centers. That's the 2026 layoffs story in a single sentence. Companies aren't cutting because they're broke. They're cutting because Wall Street rewards headcount-to-capex conversion, and "AI" is the magic word that makes the stock go up.