faitherin sumner a software recruiter at facebooks parent company meta used to brag to potential hires that the company had been the fastest ever to be valued at 1 trillion she said that she would promote the companys strengths even last year as its stock price tumbled and its core business digital advertising struggledwhen rumors of layoffs began to circulate last year she assured colleagues that their jobs were safe pointing to the more than 40 billion in cash the company had in the bank but in november she was among 11000 workers laid offit was gutwrenching said sumner 32 she has managed to find a new job as the head recruiter for a startup called deleteme which aims to remove customers information from search results but she said she cringes each time she reads about more tech layoffsi fear its going to get worse before it gets better sumner said theres no guarantee i got laid off by the most secure company in the worlda similar reversal of fortune has challenged businesses selling software services shares of salesforce an industry leader fell nearly 50 last year as its sales growth slowed the company had splurged during the pandemic spending 28 billion to buy slack technologies it swelled to 80000 employees from 49000 in two yearsduring an allhands meeting last week to discuss the companys decision to lay off 10 of its workers marc benioff the companys ceo tried to sympathize with his unhappy staff by putting the cuts in contextive been through a lot of difficult times in this company every loss reawakens another loss for me he said according to a recording of the call heard by the new york times obviously were talking about a layoff i think about employees who have died i think about people weve lost that we never wanted to loseasked what advice he had for employees who were anxious about the state of the company and further layoffs benioff suggested gratitudeaustin bedford learned that he was one of about 8000 people being let go from salesforce when he tried to log on to his computer and couldnt access slack the tool that he worked on as a conversation designer a native of east palo alto california he studied computer design because he hoped to join one of the profitable companies in his backyard the job he landed at the company in 2021 fulfilled a dream he never imagined he would lose it so sooni was shocked said bedford 41although disappointed that he was laid off he said that he was trying to view being out of work as a blessing in disguise and intended to be selective about what job he took nexttheres something bright around the corner bedford said i just need to have faith