Salesforce laying off 1,000 during hiring push

Salesforce is cutting 1,000 employees while it is in the middle of hiring 2,000 new ones.

The layoff of more than 1% of the company’s employees was first reported by Bloomberg, which cited an anonymous source “familiar with the matter.” Salesforce has yet to comment on it. According to the report, it’s unclear which departments are taking the biggest hits.

The laid-off employees will reportedly be able to apply for new positions within the company, and there seem to be plenty of openings. In December, the company said it planned to hire 2,000 new sales representatives because of demand for its AI products.

The company continues to go all-in on AI. In September, CEO Marc Benioff unveiled Agentforce for Salesforce, saying it was for people who don’t know much about using AI or building bots.

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“They are not going to have to be an expert in an LLM, they are not going to have to understand all of these deep capabilities that you would need to know to be a computer scientist,” he said. This is “AI for the rest of us.”

Earlier this month, the company released a version of Agentforce designed for retail, with a library of pre-built agent skills including order management, appointment scheduling, guided shopping and loyalty promotion management. 

Despite the layoffs, Salesforce’s revenue is still on the rise, sales increased an average of 9% over the first three quarters of its fiscal 2025. That suggests these job cuts are more about shifting priorities than money issues.

Salesforce will report its next round of earnings on Feb. 26.