NEW YORK - Cloud computing giant Salesforce on Wednesday said it was shedding about 10 per cent of its employees, or just under 8,000 jobs, and closing several offices.

With the plan, Salesforce joins other US tech giants including Facebook owner Meta, Twitter and Amazon that have also imposed job cuts as the world economy heads into a downturn.

After strong growth during the coronavirus pandemic, the California-based group said business slowed last year amid rampant inflation and rising interest rates.

“As our revenue accelerated through the pandemic, we hired too many people... and I take responsibility for that,” Salesforce boss Marc Benioff said in a letter to employees.

The company said most of the layoffs would take place in the coming weeks and will cost between US$1.4 billion (S$1.9 billion) and US$2.1 billion.

By December 2022, Salesforce, which specialises in business software and cloud computing, said it had 79,000 employees worldwide.

This was up sharply from 49,000 employees in January 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic sent office work online in a major boost to Salesforce.

Shares of Salesforce rose more than 3 per cent after the announcement. Over the past 12 months, the stock has fallen about 44 per cent. AFP