Salesforce hiring: CEO Marc Benioff says he will hire 1,000 graduates as AI-led layoffs hit Big Tech

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently posted on social media platform X that his firm will be hiring 1,000 new graduates and interns “to ride the AI exponential.” His post comes at a time when artificial intelligence (AI) has challenged the economics of software firms and software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies like Salesforce across the globe.

In his post on X on 25 April, Benioff wrote, “You are right they said AI would kill entry-level jobs. Meanwhile these grads & interns are building it — powering Agentforce & Headless360 at Salesforce. New grads: Drop your resume to @salesforcejobs or futureforce@salesforce.com.”

His post was in response to that of Trump administration AI expert David Sacks, who had written, “Narrative violation: Hiring of new college graduates is up 5.6% over last year.” He cited statistics from a recent The Wall Street Journal report highlighting bright spots in entry-level hiring.

“Hiring of new college graduates is up 5.6% over last year. Youth unemployment for degreed 20–24‑year‑olds fell to 5.3% from 8.9%. Weren’t we told that 50% of entry-level jobs were going away? [sic],” Sacks posted.

During a May 2025 interview, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted that AI could eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years. He even reiterated it during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos in January 2026, saying that AI's impact on jobs would be "unusually painful" and far larger than most governments are prepared for.

Layoffs: New Law of the Land

Even as Benioff announced the hiring of 1,000 graduates, attempting to counter the narrative that AI was killing entry-level jobs, it comes at a time when Big Tech in the US have announced sweeping layoffs.

Earlier this month, Meta announced plans to cut over 8,000 job roles and leave 6,000 roles unfilled as it ramps up spending on AI. Meanwhile, Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts to about 8,750 employees in the United States, covering nearly 7% of its domestic workforce.

Snap, the parent company of popular messaging service Snapchat, announced plans to slash up to 16% of its global workforce on 15 April.

On 31 March, Oracle initiated a process to cut nearly 30,000 positions, roughly 18% of its global workforce. The Oracle layoffs' impact was also felt in India, where the software giant terminated 12,000 employees.

Block, a fintech company co-founded by Jack Dorsey, announced layoffs for over 4,000 employees, about 40% of its workforce, in February this year.

In fact, more than 81,200 employees have been laid off by 97 tech firms so far in 2026, according to layoffs.fyi, an independent, real-time tracker of job losses in the tech and startup sectors across the world.

A major catalyst driving these layoffs is AI-related restructuring, as tech firms increasingly allocate funds to automation and efficiency, leading to workforce trimming.