Salesforce, the cloud-based software giant behind Slack and Tableau, plans to lay off around 700 employees, the latest technology company to shed workers as investors pressure for reduced costs.
The layoffs affect about 1% of the San Francisco-based company’s 70,000 employees. Salesforce cut 10% of its workforce, or about 8,000 employees, 12 months ago.
With its latest round of job cuts, first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Salesforce joins at least 88 other tech companies in reducing staff over the past month, according to industry layoffs tracker layoffs.fyi. Major industry giants — including Google, Amazon and Apple — have trimmed staff in recent weeks, as have Microsoft, Riot Games and Unity.
Salesforce still has 1,000 jobs open across its divisions, a person familiar with the company’s plans told the Journal, adding that the layoffs are intended to help it refocus on spending and growth.
A representative for Salesforce did not immediately return The Messenger’s request for comment.
After a post-pandemic slowdown in sales hurt Salesforce’s growth, activist investors — including Elliot Management — purchased a stake in the company and pressured CEO Marc Benioff to quickly increase margins or face a proxy battle. After reporting stronger-than-expected financial results in March — due to the layoffs and other expense cuts — Elliot rescinded its challenge.
Last September, Salesforce Chief Operating Officer Brian Millham told Bloomberg the company had added 3,300 positions across its engineering, sales and data cloud product team. Benioff, at the time, told the publication he hoped to rehire some former employees.
