Salesforce Quietly Cuts 1,000 Jobs Amid Hiring Push, Sources – CX Today

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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.  

However, while the latest layoffs may have again proven necessary to facilitate Salesforce’s shifting focus, the CEO could face criticism from some quarters for not retraining existing employees – especially given its growing revenues.

Indeed, Freshworks, its CRM competitor, recently received criticism for announcing layoffs straight after reporting a “strong” quarter of growth.

Nevertheless, Salesforce’s reported cuts affect a much smaller percentage of its employees, and there are still plenty of job opportunities within the CRM leader’s ecosystem. 

These positions include administrative roles, functional consultants, business analysts, and more.  

More News from Salesforce

Last week, Benioff claimed that Salesforce has already won “thousands” of Agentforce deals.  

Speaking with Bloomberg Television at the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos, he expressed enthusiasm about the company’s Q4 performance, which may have accelerated its pivot to becoming an AI-centric business. 

Elsewhere, Salesforce recently announced the retirement of its Einstein Copilot AI assistant.  

Although the phase-out was hinted at in January 2025, the decision still surprised many users.  

Yet, it’s still significant in highlighting how Salesforce is signaling the end of copilots and embracing the era of autopilots.