Salesforce cuts 700 jobs, or about 1% of its global workforce as tech layoffs top 25,000 in 2004

Salesforce is laying off around 700 employees, or approximately 1% of its global workforce, as major U.S. tech companies started 2024 with fresh plans to reduce their headcount, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Despite the layoffs, the report also suggests that Salesforce still has around 1,000 job openings throughout the organization, suggesting that this move might be more of a routine adjustment rather than a significant restructuring, sources told the Wall Street Journal.

“Salesforce is laying off around 700 employees across the company in the latest round of layoffs to hit the tech industry, said a person familiar with its plans. The layoffs comprise around 1% of the roughly 70,000-person company that makes cloud-based customer-relationship management software. One year ago, it cut 10% of its workers or around 8,000 employees, amid pressure from investors to reduce costs,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Salesforce had already downsized its workforce in the previous year, reducing jobs by 10% and closing some offices to address an overstaffing issue caused by rapid hiring during the pandemic. This workforce reduction positively impacted the company’s earnings, resulting in increased revenue in the second and third quarters and an upward adjustment to its annual profit forecast.

In September, Salesforce announced plans to hire over 3,000 new employees after the job cuts in January of the same year, aiming to improve profit margins.

Salesforce is not the only company taking such measures. Earlier in the week, eBay revealed its plan to cut around 1,000 positions, approximately 9% of its current workforce, while Microsoft announced layoffs affecting 1,900 employees at Activision Blizzard and Xbox.

These job cuts are part of a broader trend of layoffs in the U.S. tech industry following extensive hiring during the pandemic, affecting even major players like Amazon and Google. As of January, Layoffs.fyi reported that 24,499 workers have been laid off from 89 tech companies, marking the highest number since March when nearly 38,000 people in the industry faced job losses.