Workday promises to grow workforce slowly and differently after shedding 1,750 jobs

February jobs cuts will be followed by rehiring in line with AI 'aspirations,' CFO says

Workday has promised to rehire the 1,750 jobs it chopped earlier in the year, but in no particular timeframe and with a focus on investments in AI, the CFO has said.

Speaking at a conference run by investment bank Jefferies, Zane Rowe said the HR and finance software biz was clear about aims to rehire about the same number of people it cut. In February, Workday said it would expunge 8.5 percent of its workforce.

Last week, Rowe said Workday continued to be committed to rehiring staff in line with its growth plans, yet set no timetable on expanding roles. He added that Workday would be hiring for different skillsets than those of the staffers it made redundant.

"Our intention is to invest back in the business and ultimately have the same amount of people working. It is about being thoughtful with growth and how we think about where those hires would come from, and where they would ultimately go within the organization. We're not under a tight time frame on how we hire back.

Back in February, Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach said the corporation needed to expand its global footprint and he intended to focus on "prioritizing innovation investments like AI and platform development, and rigorously evaluating the ROI of others across the board."

At the Jefferies conference, Rowe claimed:

"We're a growing company, and we have great aspirations on the AI front, as well as becoming continuously more efficient and effective at everything we do, whether it's on product development, go to market in every aspect of the business. We will be hiring back. We wanted to make sure everyone understood that this is not us reducing. This is us, in fact, growing, but [in] different ways in different geographies, and focused on specific areas," he said.

He said Workday was considering if some roles would be needed "years from now" in light of how the business is changing, especially with regard to AI. "There's a lot more that goes into it. I don't want to make it sound like, 'Oh, we're just going to hire for the sake of hiring.' That's the complete opposite. We're very diligent about bringing people into the company, ensuring that they're driving incredible [return on investment] and growth for the business," he said.

Earlier this year when discussing fiscal 2025 results, Eschenbach said the SaaS company wanted to make the savings to invest in its AI agent platform.

"There's no doubt this investment is required because of the demand we're seeing. It's also required on the go-to-market side, where we're going to continue to invest to be able to take the Agent System of Record along with all of our role-based agents deeper into the enterprise," he told investors.

The cost of the restructuring was estimated at up to $270 million in total, both in terms of cash expenditure and non-cash charges. ®