Salesforce is set to lay off around 700 employees, constituting around 1% of its global workforce.
The Wall Street Journalreports the disheartening move is part of a continuing trend in 2024, which echoes what we saw in 2023. While this reduction in workforce is significant, 1% is noticeably less drastic than its 10% reduction this time last year.
The WSJ report also reveals that the company has 1,000 job openings across various departments. An unnamed source cited in the report suggests that the latest layoffs could be more of a routine adjustment to the company’s headcount rather than a reactive measure to ongoing economic challenges.
Salesforce lays off even more workers
Google has also announced similar layoffs this year, which many fear could be related to the company’s rollout of AI across its ads department, effectively seeing the technology replace humans. Google did not comment on that when we contacted the company, however given Salesforce’s heavy investments in AI, we can’t help but wonder whether the technology could be threatening its workers, too.
As the tech industry continues to navigate a seemingly ever-lasting post-pandemic landscape of struggles, Salesforce’s news comes as no surprise, and will likely be part of many more similar announcements to come.
According to layoffs.fyi, more than 262,000 tech workers were made redundant globally last year, and more than 23,000 workers have already been similarly affected in the first few weeks of this year. Moreover, the same website, which tasks itself with tracking tech layoffs globally, reveals that Salesforce already fired more than 9,000 workers last season, including 8,000 in January 2023 and 1,000 in November 2022.
In a more positive light, this season’s layoffs are being framed more as restructuring rather than cutting down from previous overhiring efforts, suggesting that even if workers lose their jobs, there could be some security within the industry more broadly.
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