Tech layoffs 2025: Salesforce to slash 1,000 jobs as it joins Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and more in cutting roles
We’re just seven weeks into the year, but a number of high-profile technology giants have already begun trimming their ranks. Here’s what to know.
[Image: Наталья Босяк/Adobe Stock]
BY Michael Grothaus2 minute readShare
The new year isn’t getting off to a great start when it comes to employment in the tech industry. Tech giant Salesforce is reportedly getting ready to cut 1,000 roles at the company. The expected job cuts are just the latest in a line of layoffs already initiated by well-known companies in the technology sector, including Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft. Here’s what you need to know.
Salesforce to reportedly lay off over 1,000 employees
Today, Bloomberg reported that Salesforce, the world’s top customer-relationship-management software company, will be cutting more than 1,000 positions at the company. The news came from an unnamed source and was not an official announcement from Salesforce.
Nothing is known about which departments will be hit hardest by the cuts. However, a Bloomberg source said that any displaced workers will be allowed to apply for other positions at the company. We’ve reached out to Salesforce for comment.
It’s also worth noting that these cuts aren’t a net job reduction at Salesforce, as the company is also currently actively hiring salespeople to promote its AI offerings to customers.
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Salesforce reported having 73,000 employees as of January 2024, which means that a reduction of 1,000 personnel equates to fewer than 1% of its workforce.
Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and more cut jobs
Despite being fewer than seven weeks into the new year, many other major tech companies have already announced plans to reduce their workforce in 2025.
In mid-January, Facebook parent Meta Platforms announced it would cut about 5% of its 72,000-person workforce. A 5% reduction in staff equates to about 3,600 people, noted Bloomberg. Announcing the cuts in an internal memo, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “I’ve decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low-performers faster.”
Last month, Microsoft also laid off workers it deemed low performers, Business Insider reported. It’s unknown how many employees at the Redmond, Washington, company would lose their roles. We’ve reached out to Microsoft for comment.
Amazon also announced in January that it would eliminate staff, Bloomberg reported, with dozens in its communications department being targeted.
And it’s not just the Big Tech giants.
Smaller tech companies have also announced layoffs since the new year began, smaller tech companies have announced layoffs, including payments platform Stripe, which is eliminating 300 positions; and Placer.ai, the Israeli location-analytics firm, which is laying off 150 workers.
A repeat of 2022 to 2024?
The news, coming so early in 2025, has understandably given rise to anxieties for those in the industry who survived the massive industry-wide layoffs between 2022 and 2024, when hundreds of thousands of tech workers lost their jobs. Will 2025 be a repeat of those years?
At this point, that’s impossible to answer. However, the 2022-2024 period of mass tech industry layoffs was considered more of a “correction,” spurred by over-hiring during the pandemic years when many tech companies saw a rapid uptick in users and customers.
In 2025, the greatest threat to job layoffs is the rising specter of AI and its ability to replace human workers. It’s too early to know whether AI will pose a serious risk to tech industry jobs this year.
Layoffs-tracking site Layoffs.fyi says that so far in 2025, 31 tech companies have laid off just over 7,000 employees. That compares to the 152,000 employees laid off across various companies in 2024 and the 264,000 and 165,000 laid off in 2023 and 2022, respectively.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Grothaus is a novelist and author. His latest novel, BEAUTIFUL SHINING PEOPLE, has been translated into multiple languages More
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