On Monday, Salesforce laid off hundreds of employees, the San Francisco tech giant’s second round of layoffs this year. It follows an earlier round in October, when 90 people — primarily contract workers in the recruiting department — lost their jobs.
Salesforce did not disclose how many San Francisco employees were laid off. Most of those affected were part of the company’s sales department, Axios reported. Salesforce has also frozen hiring until January 2023.
“Our sales performance process drives accountability,” a Salesforce spokesperson said in a statement. “Unfortunately, that can lead to some leaving the business, and we support them through their transition.”
With approximately 10,000 employees in San Francisco, the company is the city’s largest employer. As of August 2022, Salesforce had 73,542 employees in offices around the world.
During Dreamforce, the company’s annual conference, co-CEO Marc Benioff hinted at “some level of normalization” after previously seeing significant customer demand and growth during the pandemic.
“Everything is still bigger, but there is definitely some overage that has to be dealt with,” he said of Salesforce’s growth in a press conference during the event. “I don’t think anyone will disagree with that.”
That return to “normalization” and slower growth has seen many tech companies reduce their head counts. During the past week alone, payment company Stripe laid off more than 1,000 workers, ride-hailing giant Lyft cut more than 500, and digital bank Chime laid off 160. Twitter laid off 3,700 employees, half of its workforce, after billionaire Elon Musk acquired the company.
And in the largest round of layoffs affecting the tech industry so far, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is cutting 11,000 workers today.
Tech editor Joshua Bote contributed to this article.
Read More:Salesforce, SF’s largest employer, lays off hundreds
2022-11-10 01:54:36
