On Monday, Salesforce laid off hundreds of employees, the San Francisco technology the giant’s second round of layoffs this year. It follows a first round in octoberwhen 90 people – mostly contract workers from the recruiting department – lost their jobs.
Salesforce did not disclose how many San Francisco employees were laid off. Most of those affected were from 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, this may lead some to leave the company, and we support them in 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.
At Dreamforce, the company’s annual conference, co-CEO Marc Benioff hinted “a certain level of standardization” having previously seen significant customer demand and growth during the pandemic.
“It’s all still bigger, but there’s definitely a surplus to manage,” he said of Salesforce’s growth during a press conference at the event. “I don’t think anyone will disagree with that.”
This return to “normalization” and slowing growth has seen many tech companies downsize. In the past week alone, payment company Stripe laid off more than 1,000 workersridesharing giant Lyft cut over 500and digital banking Carillon licensed 160. Twitter laid off 3,700 employeeshalf of its workforce, after billionaire Elon Musk acquired the company.
And in the biggest round of layoffs affecting the tech industry to date, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, cuts 11,000 workers today.
Technical Writer Joshua Bote contributed to this article.
