Salesforce has joined ranks with technology peers Twitter and Meta as it starts laying off hundreds of employees this week. Credit: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock.com Cloud-based CRM software provider Salesforce has become the latest technology company to announce mass layoffs, cutting at least hundreds of jobs from its 73,000-person workforce. “Our sales performance process drives accountability. Unfortunately, that can lead to some leaving the business, and we support them through their transition,” Salesforce said in a statement confirming the layoffs. Salesforce has experienced a relatively successful year financially, with the company’s second quarter revenue rising 22% year on year, driven by rapid adoption of its cloud-based CRM and other sales management tools. The company is facing pressure to cut costs since last month when activist hedge fund Starboard Value took a stake in the company and immediately called for Salesforce to increase its margins, although Starboard didn’t explicitly call for a workforce reduction. Salesforce is not the only tech company to announce job cuts this month. Last week, Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, fired almost half of the social media platform’s workforce in addition to the company’s senior leadership team. Meta has also announced it is reducing the size of its workforce by 13%, leading to 11,000 employees losing their jobs. In a statement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg said that the company would also be taking a number of additional steps to become a “leaner and more efficient company,” by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1. Related content news Google spurs US to ease immigration rules for tech talent Citing a US talent shortage, the tech giant has urged the Department of Labor to expand Schedule A occupations to include AI, software engineering, and cybersecurity roles. By Sascha Brodsky May 01, 2024 4 mins H-1B Visas Hiring Technology Industry brandpost Sponsored by Cisco Reduce your network complexity with AI Jumpstart your AI-enabled network transformation now to achieve multiple benefits. By Matt Landry May 01, 2024 5 mins Networking brandpost Sponsored by SAP Internet startup launches while embracing adoption Internet provider Brightspeed had to replicate information from its SAP solutions to AI-ready, data analytics platform Google BigQuery. SAP’s adoption strategy helped empower the company to become an intelligent enterprise. By Keith Elliot Greenberg, SAP Contributor May 01, 2024 4 mins Digital Transformation feature Expectations vs. reality: A real-world check on generative AI Now with the benefit of hindsight, organizations are more aware of moving cautiously to ensure gen AI delivers rather than disappoints. By Mary Branscombe May 01, 2024 11 mins Microsoft Generative AI Development Tools PODCASTS VIDEOS RESOURCES EVENTS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe