A Massive California Company Is Now Cutting 300 Jobs

July 16, 2024

A massive California company is now cutting 300 jobs after already eliminating a total of 700 roles earlier this year.

Salesforce has now confirmed the company’s second wave of mass layoffs from the California-based tech company.

The latest cuts are part of the company’s ongoing effort to streamline its operations, Bloomberg reported Monday (July 15).

Without specifying the number of layoffs, a Salesforce spokesperson told Bloomberg: “Like any healthy business, we continuously assess whether we have the right structure in place to best serve our customers and fuel growth areas.

In some cases that leads to roles being eliminated.”

At the end of January, the firm had 72,682 employees, according to the report.

When Salesforce laid off 700 employees — or about 1% of its workforce — in January, the cuts were made across the company, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

The report suggested that because the company still had 1,000 jobs open, those cuts were a routine adjustment of the workforce and an effort to redirect spending to other areas.

Salesforce made a bigger adjustment in January 2023, cutting 8,000 positions — or 10% of its workforce — while pointing to a slowdown in customers’ buying.

“Our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff wrote in a January 4, 2023, letter to employees.

The latest round of layoffs comes at a time when artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a role in recent tech sector job cuts.

Layoffs in the tech industry for the year exceeded 100,000 as of Friday (July 12), with a portion being attributed to companies shifting their focus to AI, Seeking Alpha reported Sunday (July 14), citing data from the tracker Layoffs.fyi.

On Tuesday (July 9), UiPath, a provider of AI-powered enterprise automation technology, said that it would lay off 10% of its global workforce of 4,200 as part of a restructuring aimed at managing its operating expenses.

For more layoff news and updates like this, opt-in for push notifications.

Also Read: Retirees Will Now Receive More Money For Social Security

Other Economy News Today

Applications for unemployment benefits now surge to new highs, a sign that the white-hot labor market is starting to cool off.

First-time applications for unemployment benefits rose last week to 231,000, the highest level since August, per CNN.

Thursday’s data also showed that the number of continuing claims, or applications from people who have filed for unemployment for at least one week, was 1.78 million.

That’s an increase of 17,000 from the prior week, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The latest numbers come less than a week after the monthly jobs report showed the US economy added just 175,000 positions in April, less than economists expected and a steep drop-off from prior months.

US employers have now added an average of 245,500 jobs per month, versus 2023’s 251,000-per-month average.

Still, hiring remains strong. Although the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9% last month, it’s the 27th consecutive month that the jobless rate has held under 4%, matching a streak last seen in the late 1960s.

Weekly jobless claims data tends to be volatile but, while one week’s worth of data “does not a trend make,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at Fwdbonds.

“We can no longer be sure that calm seas lie ahead for the US economy if today’s weekly jobless claims are any indication.”

“Company layoffs are picking up, hinting at caution on the part of companies as they weigh the outlook for the second half of the year,” he wrote in a note Thursday.

The Federal Reserve has been battling inflation by raising its key lending rate in the hopes of slowing the economy.

While the labor market has so far resisted those efforts, remaining white hot for the past 18 months despite 11 rate hikes from the central bank, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last week that demand has “cooled from its extremely high level of a couple of years ago.”

Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Economics said in a note Thursday: “We’d need to see at least a month of elevated readings to convince us that the trend really has turned.”

For more news and updates like this, opt-in for push notifications.

Also Read: A Giant Company Now Announces Unexpected Layoffs in Virginia

Market News Published Daily 📰

Don’t forget to opt-in for push notifications so you don’t miss a single article!

Also, thank you to all of our blog sponsors.

This year we’ve been able to increase push notifications slots making it more convenient than ever for new readers to receive their daily market news and updates.

Our readers can now donate $3 per month to support independent journalism.

For daily news and updates on your favorite stories, opt-in for push notifications.

Follow Frank Nez on X (Twitter), Instagram, or Facebook.

More Market News 📰