Salesforce To Lay Off 700 Employees: Reports

The reported layoffs make up about 1 percent of the company’s total workforce..

Salesforce plans to lay off 700 employees, about 1 percent of the company, according to multiple news reports Friday.

The cuts are a smaller share of the San Francisco-based customer relationship management (CRM) tools vendor following its 10-percent employee reduction at the start of 2023, when numerous tech vendors and solution providers decreased headcount as tech spending slowed following the height of the global pandemic.

Salesforce has about 11,000 partners, according to the vendor.

[RELATED: Salesforce Q3 2023 Earnings: AI Wins Amid ‘Measured’ Customer Buying]

Salesforce Layoffs 2024

CRN has reached out to Salesforce for comment.

Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reported on the layoffs. Salesforce still has 1,000 open positions across the company, according to The Wall Street Journal. The move is possibly part of a routine workforce adjustment instead of a strategic shift. Neither outlet reported on what departments would see cuts at Salesforce.

Last year, Salesforce had to reevaluate company spending and margins amid activistinvestor interest.

But the vendor has still asserted itself in the generative AI race. CEO and co-founder Marc Benioff told investors on the company’s quarterly earnings call in November that customer interest in GenAI and preparing data for AI technology fueled Salesforce’s $8.72 billion quarter.

However, the vendor’s executives warned that they still see “measured” tech spending, with Benioff acknowledging continued slowness experienced by channel partners.