Salesforce reportedly laying off people month after announcing hiring plans for India

After having to fire 1,000 people during the peak of the pandemic, software services provider Saleforce had announced plans to hire 12,000 new employees in the second half of 2020. Following that, there was a three-fold increase in its workforce for India over the next two years. But despite defying headwinds to record a 25 per cent year on year increase in revenue for FY22, Salesforce is reportedly laying off people and has frozen hiring.

Who has been laid off?

These recent layoffs have hit about 90 people, which are a small part of the global Saleforce staff of more than 70,000, with most being contract workers. According to SFGate reports, the employees who lost jobs are from the recruitment department, and a company spokesperson has said that they’ve switched to limited hiring. But reports suggest that a hiring freeze will be implemented by Salesforce till January 2023.

Big plans for India in store?

The company has ended contracts of the temporary employees after recently announcing that it seeks to scale up profits by increasing operating margins to 25 per cent in the next four years. Last month Salesforce also revealed plans for hiring 2500 new people in India to scale up its workforce to 10,000 in the country. It has already opened office in six Indian cities including Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurugram.

Is recession a concern?

The company with a global presence counts Coca Cola, GE and Canon among its clients, and its CEOs have mentioned that they are resilient to the imminent recession, that global organisations as well as economists are warning the world about. But the downturn which will cause unemployment and uncertainty, is also expected to bring down attrition in the IT sector, even though revenues of the industry will be down 33 per cent.