Salesforce is reportedly slashing more than 1,000 jobs.
Bloomberg broke the news, citing a "person familiar with the matter", who confirmed that affected employees would be able to apply for internal positions.
The source also stated that it was unclear which divisions were most affected by the reductions.
Salesforce has not yet confirmed the job cuts.
Interestingly, the reported releases will occur at the same time as the vendor is actively looking to recruit 2,000 employees to help sell its new agentic AI solution: Agentforce.
While Salesforce has not yet revealed which roles are set to be scrapped, the focus on Agentforce-related positions suggests that the CRM leader is restructuring its business to become more of an AI- and data-led company.
Prior to the proposed layoffs and hires, the latest workforce figures show Salesforce to be employing 72,682 workers.
As such, 1.3 percent of its workforce will likely be impacted by the job cuts.
How Salesforce Is Avoiding Its Past Mistakes
In a recent interview on the Behind the Founder podcast, Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, spoke candidly about the 2023 decision to reduce Salesforce’s workforce by ten percent.
Reflecting back on the situation, he said:
When we did the layoff, I’m trying to overcommunicate. I’m having all employee meetings. It’s a complete dumpster fire. It’s a nightmare.
While the scale of the alleged layoffs is much lower this time around, perhaps the quieter approach of letting sources sneak out the cuts and not rushing to confirm or deny them shows that Benioff has learned from the experience.
Indeed, it still seems burnt into his mind, with Benioff going on to name the decision to cut thousands of employees as one of the biggest challenges of his career, explaining that while layoffs were the last thing he wanted, they became necessary due to the post-pandemic economic downturn.
