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 feature CEOs’ top priorities for IT leaders today Chief executives are displaying a deeper understanding of technology’s impact on achieving organizational objectives — and they are shifting their directives for IT leaders to ensure that impact is a success. By Mary Pratt May 13, 2024 11 mins Business IT Alignment Digital Transformation IT Strategy news analysis IBM’s watsonx.governance takes aim at AI auditing With regulation on the rise, IT leaders must ensure AI model safety and integrity. Big Blue believes it has an edge, offering audit trails, real-time monitoring, and platform flexibility. By Anirban Ghoshal May 13, 2024 6 mins IBM Generative AI Data Governance news Boomi burnishes API management capabilities The launch version of the framework comes with four agents — Boomi Answers, Boomi DesignGen, Boomi DataDetective, and Boomi Scribe. By John Leyden May 10, 2024 4 mins APIs PaaS feature TIAA modernizes the customer journey with AI The financial services organization overhauled its customer service operations, weaving together machine learning models, generative AI, and customer journey mapping to improve customer experience and predict trouble points. By Paula Rooney May 10, 2024 6 mins CIO 100 Digital Transformation Artificial Intelligence 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