Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff says the company will cut up to 10% of its current workforce. In a email noticed by Business Insiderblames Benioff on hiring practices in the midst of the pandemic.
The business “environment continues to be challenging,” Benioff wrote in the email sent Jan. 4, “and our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions. With this in mind, we have made the very difficult decision to expand our workforce. reduce by about 10 percent, especially in the coming weeks.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about how we got to this moment,” continued Benioff, “while our revenues accelerated through the pandemic, we overhired, leading to this economic downturn that we’re facing right now, and I take the responsibility for That.”
Employees of the cloud-based software company who are laid off will receive nearly five months of wages, insurance and other resources. Salesforce indicated in a regulatory document noted by Business Insider that the budget for all cost cuts will spend $1 billion and $1.4 billion on employee transitions, in addition to a whopping $650 million on office space reductions.
Salesforce’s cuts are part of a trend where other tech giants such as Facebook and Amazon have taken similar measures in anticipation of an impending recession. We will likely see job cuts and restructuring elsewhere in the coming months. While this is hard on employees and their families, such measures are often necessary to keep companies financially viable in times of economic uncertainty.
