The software company Salesforce announced on Wednesday that it would be cutting ten percent of its jobs. Some locations will also be closed as part of this cost-cutting program. The SAP rival had more than 73,000 employees at the end of January 2022. "The environment remains difficult and our customers are being more cautious in their purchasing decisions," wrote Co-CEO Marc Benioff in a letter to employees.

Those affected by the job cuts in the USA will receive at least five months' salary plus benefits, Salesforce also announced. Employees in other countries received comparable severance payments. The company put the cost of the job cuts at between 1.4 and 2.1 billion dollars. Of this, between 800 million and one billion dollars were attributable to the current quarter.

In response to the cost-cutting measures, Salesforce shares rose by around three percent in pre-market US trading. However, the past stock market year was the group's worst since 2008, with a drop of almost 50 percent.

(Report by Nivedita Balu; written by Hakan Ersen, edited by Christian Götz. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)