Salesforce: Plans To Lay Off 7,000

Cloud-based software developer Salesforce on Jan. 3 unveiled plans to lay off about 7,000 of its employees, with co-CEO Marc Benioff saying that the company had hired too many employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. The San Francisco-based company had over 73,500 employees in early 2022, which was an increase of 30 percent compared with 2021.

The layoffs will result in charges of between $1 billion and $1.4 billion as a result of employee transition, severance payments, employee benefits and share-based compensation plans.

Salesforce also plans to close several offices and sell some of its real estate, with the final closures expected to be finished in fiscal 2026.

“The environment remains challenging and our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions,” Benioff said in a letter to employees filed with the U.S. SEC. “With this in mind, we’ve made the very difficult decision to reduce our workforce by about 10 percent, mostly over the coming weeks.”