Salesforce slashes hundreds more jobs, rattling investors

The software giant made the cuts this month, according to a person familiar with the reductions who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. In a statement, the company confirmed that it had pared some jobs, without getting specific.

“Like any healthy business, we continuously assess whether we have the right structure in place to best serve our customers and fuel growth areas,” a spokesperson said. “In some cases that leads to roles being eliminated.”

While a small sliver of the company’s total workforce, the cuts are just the latest example of the tech industry reining in costs following years of rapid hiring. San Francisco-based Salesforce cut about 700 workers earlier this year and pared roughly 10% of its total workforce at the start of 2023.

The latest reduction briefly rattled investors, sending the shares to a session low after Bloomberg reported on the move. They fell as much as 0.5% to $252.64 in New York on Monday. The stock was down 3.5% this year through the end of last week. 

Several large tech companies announced major reductions this month. Intuit Inc. announced plans to eliminate 1,800 employees last week, blaming the reductions largely on underperforming employees and saying it would rehire roughly the same number of people. Software makers UiPath Inc. and Open Text Corp. also disclosed layoffs this month. Last month, Business Insider reported that Microsoft Corp. cut hundreds of workers in its Azure cloud division.

Salesforce has previously spoken about hiring in key areas to drive revenue growth, such as around its Data Cloud product, while keeping an eye on expenses. “Are we getting the most from everybody in the business — if we’re not, we’re going to have to make reshaping decisions,” said Chief Operating Officer Brian Millham during a June investor conference. 

At the end of January, Salesforce had 72,682 employees.